3 Softball Pitching Necessities

There are 3 things that can help softball pitchers a great deal.  In fact, these 3 things are practically necessities for great softball pitchers.  No, I'm not talking about speed, a great change up, and movement, though those things are most definitely beneficial to pitchers.  I'm actually talking about 3 things that are completely unrelated to the physical task of pitching a softball.  What are they?

Selective Hearing

One of THE most talked about players on a team is the pitcher.  When they do well, they can get a lot of credit.  On the flip side, when things go badly, they can often get the blame for a lot of it (even if it's not necessarily from teammates or coaching staff). People will definitely talk and if a pitcher hears it all and focuses too much on the negativity that can surround that position, it can be detrimental to their confidence, their focus, and ultimately, to their performance.

Also, pitchers tend to have at least one parent who will try to "coach" them from the stands in some way shape or form.  While, as a parent, I completely understand that this parent is really, truly trying to help, I also know, as a former player who was on the receiving end of those "helpful" tips, that the good intentions of parents are not what comes through on the other side.  Too often I see pitchers (and other players too) who lose focus on what's important, get frustrated, or lose confidence in themselves because of their parent's "help."

So having the ability to filter out the "noise" or distractions as a pitcher is critical to your success.

Tunnel Vision

I agree that knowing your opponent, a.k.a. the batter, is important.  This can help you attack their weaknesses more effectively.  However, once you know what pitch you are going to throw, the batter becomes irrelevant.  You MUST be able to focus straight ahead and block out EVERYTHING else, including the batter standing the box.

I recently saw a game where the pitcher threw quite differently against the bottom half of the order than she did against the top half.  Against the bottom half you could see her confidence.  She just threw.  She just did her thing.  She hit her spots better and, of course, she was more successful.

Against the top half, however, you could tell she was unsure.  The confidence wasn't there and you could tell she was trying not to make a mistake. Because of this tentativeness, she didn't hit her spots quite as crisply and when that happens against good hitters, it can mean bad things!  She knew these hitters were tough and she was carrying that worry with her when she was pitching the ball.  She was almost beat by those batters before she even threw a pitch.

As a pitcher, what you throw will obviously change from batter to batter, but how you throw a pitch cannot change.  Your approach should be the same all the time, no matter who's in the box.  How you throw a particular pitch should stay consistent whether you are throwing it against the best batter on a team or the worst batter on a team or even when you're throwing it without a batter in the box because it's "just practice."

I sometimes get teased because of my "tunnel vision," because I don't see anything outside of what I'm focused on.  People wonder how I can possibly miss some of the other things going on around me.  LOL - obviously there are times when tunnel vision is bad (like when you're driving!).  But being able to shut out everything outside the the "tunnel" between you and your catcher when you're throwing your pitch is a valuable skill to have!

Short Term Memory