The mindset of a pitcher should be forever changing. Every hitter represents another battle that necessitates a new plan of attack. When these best-laid plans inevitably go awry because it’s impossible to execute perfectly and stymie whoever is at the plate with every pitch, it’s imperative that adjustments then be made on the fly. At times on the mound, you’re going to want to establish your dominance with an overpowering fastball on the inside corner. Elsewhere, you’ll be trying to set a hitter up with a pitch outside the zone, and ultimately, there will come a time when you’ll need to be ready to go in for the kill. Though every at-bat is bound to be its own slightly different struggle, the one constant will be the same counts that you’ll encounter over and over and over again. With that in mind, here are some thoughts on how to approach each of the different counts you’ll come across while pitching in
MLB The Show 17.
0-0: The common rule of thumb whenever a new batter steps to the plate is that it’s always best to get ahead in the count. Of course, this doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a good idea to groove a fastball down the heart of the plate. Try nipping a corner with that fastball instead, or if you’ve already been using your fastball a lot to get ahead, start them with something off-speed at the knees. Alternatively, if you’ve noticed that your opponents have routinely swung at the first pitch, there are times when you may actually want to give them something out of the zone right off the bat and let them start to dig their own grave.
0-1: Now that you’ve taken command of the at-bat, you have a little more margin for error to work with. Whatever you decide to throw in this spot, it’s usually a good time to try to make the perfect pitch somewhere on the edges of the strike zone. If you hit your mark, then you’re way ahead at 0-2, but if you miss it’s not the end of the world to be even at 1-1.
1-0: You’ve fallen behind the hitter, but it’s hardly time to panic yet. It’s just become a bit more important now that you try to make this next pitch a strike. While you don’t want to throw one right down the gut just yet, you may want to bring your target a little more inside the margins of the strike zone.
1-1: When you’re back to even at 1-1, there are a lot of ways you can now go with this next pitch. Ideally, you want to stay ahead by throwing a strike, but remember that the pitcher still has the advantage here in that he gets four balls while the hitter only gets three strikes. That means the hitter should be more afraid to fall behind 1-2 than you are to fall behind 2-1. It’s a good situation to hang a breaking ball on the corner...
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04-20-2017, 04:07 PM
