43Drills

How to Have Confidence Pitching An Important Game

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

It’s every pitcher’s nightmare. It’s the championship game, everyone is watching you. Your team is counting on you. How will you perform? Here are some helpful tips to help with your pitching performance.

Steps

1. Don’t be distressed in the time leading up to the game. Keep your head, and don’t start sweating.
2. Remember, the starting pitcher for the other team is JUST as scared as you are. If you can conquer your fear before he does, you have a excellent chance to do well.
3. When you’re driving to your game, warming up or practicing, take deep breaths. Don’t get over concerned while you watch the other team take batting practice. KEEP YOUR HEAD!
4. As a pitcher, this cannot be stressed enough. Remember that you are the boss. You have control of the ball. Be confident! You have control over whether or not that team gets a hit.
5. If you start getting in a jam, or it’s a close game and you’re starting to get wild, call time, get your catcher out there, and just talk with him for a minute. Don’t think about your next pitch. Think about relaxing for a second. Meanwhile, that batter is standing there, and if you’re lucky. He is over-thinking about the upcoming pitches.
6. Keep composure on the mound. You’re the boss, remember? If that batter sees you getting all irritated or hot about a bad call, he’ll most definitely have more confidence. Once you can learn to move on and keep your cool, the closer you are to becoming an effective pitcher.
7. Don’t blame yourself. Last but not least, if you end up losing the game, don’t get all depressed and put all the blame on yourself. You win as a team and lose as a team. If your defense was sloppy, so what?! If the bats weren’t swinging good enough, so what?! You have to move on. Every pitcher has bad days, but one of the things that makes you a good pitcher is the ability to move on.

Tips

• If you end up losing, don’t toss your glove at the umpire and yell in his face. Umpiring is one of the hardest things to do in baseball. By the way, he might be bigger than you, so don’t tick him off too bad!

Related wikiHows

• How to Choose a Baseball Team to Support
• How to Not Be Scared of Being Hit by a Pitch in Baseball
• How to Calculate Whip (walks and Hits Per Innings Pitched)
• How to Pitch from the Stretch

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This drill is intended to help batters develop the ability to hit both inside and outside pitches and at the same time, maintain the proper stride position and motion. This drill requires the use of a bat, a helmet, 2 batting tees, and baseballs.

This drill can either be done as a form of batting practice or as an essential aid in developing proper defensive techniques. It begins with the baseball tee being set up to approximate an inside pitch–that is towards the front and inside of the plate. The second tee is then set up to approximate an outside pitch, or towards the middle and to the outside of the plate. Make sure that the height of the tee that represents the inside pitch tee is lower than the tee that represents the outside pitch. Place a ball on each of these tees, and have the batter stride while you call out each pitch as inside or outside. The batter will then have to swing at the ball in the appropriate location.

It is important to make sure that the calls are made after the stride in order to train the batter into making a decision quickly and instinctively, without too much time spent on thinking.

Here is a great defensive baseball drill or some might call it the bad hop drill which can be used by all level of players.  This is a great defensive drill especially a defensive baseball drill that you can use to help combine multiple drills into one saving time.  And actually watching the video sort of reminds me of the new  Arod’s commercial for his Nike SHOX cleats called “the Chase“.

One of the most commons pitfalls seen by infielders is the mistake of fielding a ground ball too close to their body - often letting the ball get all the way in between their feet. Thi cuts down on their reaction time, and most bobbles tend to end up behind the fielder, making it difficult to recover and record an out on even a slow baserunner.

To help prevent your players from holding their arms too close to their body when fielding grounders, give them a mouthful of their cap! To perform the drill, the fielder should hold his hat in his mouth by the bill - the back of the hat should be facing away from his body. A coach then hits grounders at him, stressing proper footwork and fundamentals.

Since the hat will block a large portion of the player’s field of vision, he will be forced to place his hands further out in front of him in an effort to see the ball into his hands - and thus, to field the ball properly. Though the drill naturally helps to ensure this (and most players do so without even being told), make sure that your players actually are reaching out, and not trying to simply field the ball blind, else you will do more harm than good!

Younger players should simply field the ball. Older, more skilled players can incorporate the hat in the mouth drill into their normal fielding routines - making throws to first, covering bases, even turning double plays.

Olan Suddeth is a Dixie youth baseball coach from Birmingham, Alabama. His website, youthbaseballinfo.com, provides free reprintable articles, tips, and drills.

The purpose of this drill is to perfect your infielders’ skill against the bunt. To set up the drill, you’ll need your typical infielders, though a pitcher is optional. You can double the effectiveness of the drill by having some of your other players rotate as batters - let them take turns laying down bunts. Alternately, you can simply have your catcher (or a coach) roll soft grounders to simulate bunts, but I prefer using batters.

To perform the drill correctly, you need to emphasize the importance of hard charging by the fielders. Once the fielders see the batter squaring to bunt, the first and third basemen must charge at full speed to field the ball. Simultaneously, the second basemen and shortstop must wheel to cover the corners - the shortstop covers third base, while the second baseman covers first.

Have the fielders throw to the opposite corner - the third baseman throws to first, while the first baseman throws to third. Stress aggresiveness, since a timind corner infielder might as well let the catcher pick up the bunt. Don’t let them be afraid to overrun the ball, to pick up the ball barehanded, and to make throws on the run if need be.

You can of course mix things up by having the first baseman throw to first, and the third baseman throw to third, since both of these situations do show up in games. Once your players become proficient at the drill, you might want to mix in some regular hitting so that the fielders do not cheat.

Work this drill from time to time, and you’ll be amazed at the progress of your infielders.

Olan Suddeth is a Dixie youth baseball coach from Birmingham, Alabama. His website, youthbaseballinfo.com, provides free reprintable articles, tips, and drills.

Get a catcher in full gear, coach with a number of baseballs about 5 feet from the catcher. Another catcher in full gear, coach with a number of baseballs about 15 feet from catcher, coach with a bat in the batters box.
Catcher will place both arms behind back and the coach will underhand balls to the catcher aiming for the mask. Then the catcher will catch a thrown pitch from the coach. coach should aim for the catchers mask. The other coach will swing the bat missing the pitched ball. In both parts of this drill the catcher should concentrate on not blinking or flinching.

Have a pitcher stand on each side of the mound and have 2 catchers on each side of home plate. Each pitcher will go through the pitching motion and throw a pitch to the catcher. The coach will roll out a ball down the third base or first base line. If down the third base line the pitcher will field it and make the pivot and throw to third. If down the first base line the pitcher will make the throw to first. Pitchers can practice at fielding bunts and make plays both at 3rd and first.

Purpose:
Give pitchers practice at fielding bunts and making plays both at 3rd and 1st.  This is a great bunt defense and baseball defensive drill.
Equipment:
Baseballs

Setup:
You can run this drill with 1 or 2 pitchers at a time. If using 2 pitchers have a pitcher stand on each side of the mound and have 2 catchers on each side of home plate.

Execution:
Each pitcher will go through the pitching motion and throw a pitch to the catcher. The coach will roll out a ball down the third base or first base line. If down the third base line the pitcher will field it and make the pivot and throw to third. If down the first base line the pitcher will make the throw to first.

pitching bunt defensive drill

Have one pitcher throw and then the other to keep the drill running continously.

You can also roll some just in front of the plate to have the catchers work on the same drill.