Sam wrote:I've seen enough stupid replies. NOBODY pitches to contact. NOBODY. The GOAL of the pitcher is to PREVENT the batter from hitting the ball. Period. Anyone that says different has no idea what they are talking about.
There are certainly situations where your pitcher will attempt to throw more hittable pitches....walk three in a row in a tie ballgame late with at 3-1 count.....you might groove a pitch just to avoid walking in a run. Other than that, your pitcher and the person calling the pitches, have one goal.....strike out every batter.
I don't want any pitcher that gives up on striking out every hitter.
Well Sam I beg to differ, respectively of course.....Don't get me wrong I see your point about being aggressive and having the approach of wanting to strike out every batter. Truth is, that ain't gonna happen and the pitcher and the coach needs to know what that pitchers ability is and use her strengths to their advantage.
Example; This past month I pitched at the mens nationals in Reno. I was throwing WELL velocity was up, hitting my spots, moving the ball well. We faced a very tough team, strong hitting squad a lot of upper division and open ball hitters. Guys that have faced pitchers the likes of Adam Folkard, Ramon Jones ISC level type pitchers. I went in with the, "F these guys they've never seen or faced me before I'm going at them hard rack up some K's ". Needless to say, I never made it out the 2nd inning and gave up 8 EARNED runs. The guy that came in, in relief of me basically pitched to contact working low and to the corners and the D made the outs, we almost came back to win.
My point is, its ALWAYS the pitchers job to PREVENT the batter from hitting the ball WELL!!! If you get a strike out or two or three along the way then great but max strikeouts should not be the the main objective in my opinion. Getting out of a inning or game with the least amount of pitches thrown should be.
I lost sight of that in that game because I was going after K's and bragging rights but the next day I pitched with my standard approach of "keeping the batter from hitting the ball well". I racked up 3 K's and the win against the team that mercy'd the team that beat the shit out of me the day before...