The Mental Approach to Pitching

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The Mental Game

If pitching was all about physical mechanics then why do only a small percentage of first round picks make it to the Big Leagues?

Pitching is like any other art form — one must first learn to develop and master the physical components – namely mechanics. With diligent practice and the help of a pitching instructor, a player can learn the finer points of mechanics which will allow him/her to personalize these concepts into his/her own pitching style.

The true measure of a pitcher comes when he/she can rely on his/her ability to make the pitch and become consistent. Consistency gives the pitcher a chance to have positive results... which lead to confidence.

The problem is that having good pitching mechanics is only one of the two major components of pitching...

In other words, you can have reliable and technically sound mechanics but what happens when you get into a game situation and your mind (mental approach) is not prepared like your pitching mechanics? Why would you expect it to be reliable in a game situation –
if it hasn't been practiced?

The irony is that your delivery will be relatively unaffected by a game situation because your delivery has been practiced repeatedly several thousand times. It typically won't know the difference between practice and game situations. The same can't be said for your mind. Your mind develops a "false sense of security" in practice because it gets use to repetitions in an environment that is void of game situations (pressure, doubt, statistics, consequences, and distractions). The mind feels comfortable in a practice environment. But what happens when you put on a uniform and cross that line? Do you feel like the same person on the pitcher's mound on game day?

How successful will you be if your mechanics are flawless but your mind is tense, anxious, impatient, doubtful, and cluttered with distractions? Better yet, why would you expect your mind to be prepared in a game situation when it hasn't been prepared to deal with the variables of a game situation?

The mind can either support or inhibit your pitching.

The bottom line is that if your physical mechanics are reliable and your mind is not, your mind can just as easily inhibit your hard work or it can support it in a game situation. The question then becomes, how can you expect to be successful as a pitcher when your "mental mechanics" have not been developed like your physical mechanics? Would you just show up at a game and just start throwing off the mound without ever working on your pitching mechanics? So then why would you enter a game situation – albeit, with good pitching mechanics – with a mind that's unprepared?

So, how do you work on your mind? How do you get it reliable and consistent like your pitching mechanics? Well, the first thing you must do is realize that you earned your pitching mechanics through countless hours of practice, thus you must do the same for your "mental mechanics". The good news is that your mind, like your pitching, wants to be trained, taught and practiced? It needs the same sort of attention.

When there is little or nothing on the line (i.e. bullpen practice) players tend to be in a comfort zone which conjures up the same feelings they associate with sleeping in their own bed... a familiar, reliable and trusting territory. This is what I call "Familiar Territory". However, when players put the uniform on and cross the chalk line they tend to find themselves in what I call "foreign territory". All of a sudden the pitcher's mound feels "foreign" because the feelings they are associating with it aren't prevalent as in the practice bullpen. The fluidness of the mind and their mechanics for that matter are now met by characteristics of a "game situation" (i.e. consequences, doubt, pressures, distractions, etc.)

Though you may want to believe that consistent mechanics should carry over into game situations, the reality of it is consistent mechanics, and the relaxed mind that supports them in a familiar territory (bullpen practice) are now dramatically affected by the foreign territory of a game situation. Foreign, because the mind isn't "practiced" like the mechanics are practiced. The mind must be addressed as well.

The Area of Subconscious
The number one key to pitching is having a clear and quiet mind (the absence of thought). That is your first priority because when the mind is quiet and clear the path to your natural instincts and reactions are uninhibited. The "instincts" of your ingrained mechanics can take over because tension, stress and pressure are not blocking its path. A clear mind will allow you to focus better.

For the following drills, I have pitchers imagine the front of the mound as the "Area of Subconscious" and make a distinction between "front" and "back" of the mound. Anything they want to think about (the count, the defense, coach's signals, visual zone, etc.) must be done at the back of the mound. Once their mind is quiet and clear, they will be allowed to enter the front of the mound to resume pitching.

First You Must Develop a Pre-Pitch Routine
Have you ever noticed the pre-swing and pre-putt routines that Tiger Wood's goes through to get himself mentally prepared to hit the ball? These routines provide a repeatable and reliable mechanism that allows him to prepare the mind to call upon the body to make the shot. Pitcher's must also have a pre-pitch routine. Begin with getting the signal from the catcher, take a deep breath and let it out (to relieve tension) then whisper to yourself the type of pitch you are going to throw and where (i.e. two seam fastball, low and inside) then visualize yourself making the pitch and then execute. Repeat this routine before every pitch. In order for this routine to become ingrained and become part of your muscle memory, it must be practiced on and away from the field and during all bullpen sessions.

Drill #1: Identifying Your State of Mind
What is the most ideal state of mind to be in when pitching? If you ask 100 professional pitchers you will probably hear 5 or 6 of the same characteristics mentioned: clear, calm, relaxed (body/mind), disciplined, balanced and trust (confident). Certainly, there are other characteristics for other players, but we can all pretty much agree that if your mind is relaxed, clear and trusted, you are in a great state of mind.

Now, this drill will begin with the pitcher choosing just three of these characteristics which we will call his "peak" or "ideal state of mind" for pitching. For example, the three that I would choose are Relaxed, Clear and Trust. Next, the pitcher will be allowed to enter the "area of subconscious". Remember that you are not allowed to enter that area with anything on your mind except for a visual of a zone you're looking for (to be explained later) or what I call "pitching lane".

Now, with the pitcher standing in front of the rubber, have him/her begin by throwing a pitch and ask him/her to rate his/her state of mind after each pitch on a scale of 1-100 with 100 being the greatest (the rating is based on when the ball travels past the plate). This rating is based on what the pitcher's state of mind was like in relation to his "peak" state of mind (the three characteristics that he/she chose to define his/her ideal state of mind). In other words when the ball traveled past the plate how did his/her mind respond?

With practice your mind will become free from thought, and you will become more relaxed and begin to trust yourself. Your mechanics will begin to feel more natural, and your pitching lanes will take on greater visibility. You will eventually be able to follow the ball along the pitching lane you visualized in your mind as it leaves your hand and arrives at the catchers mitt. Your initial rating of 30 to 40 will eventually climb reaching 70 to 80 and beyond.

Drill #2: Mound Discipline Identifying You're Pitching Lanes
Once you have identified your "ideal state of mind" it must be trained, become ingrained and maintained through practice so that it can become relied upon in game situations.

Because pitching is all about throwing to specific locations, we must start with knowing the strike zone. For a pitcher, there are three basic pitching zones: the inner third (lane 1, blue zone), the middle (lane 2, white zone), and the outer third (lane3, red zone). If a pitcher sees the zones better as a result of having a 90-100 mind (your ideal state of mind) than he/she is already in a better position to see his/her pitching lanes more clearly.

By seeing your lanes more clearly you will want to distinguish between those zones (lanes) that you want to pitch to and those you want to avoid. The good news is that the mind wants to get specific; it wants a game plan; it wants to know where to go, and where not to go.

With that in mind, drill number two is about "sculpting" the mind to the zones or lanes you would want it to respond to. As the mind assimilates to specific pitching lanes, it begins to groove this muscle memory in your brain. This is why you hear pitchers talking about "getting into a groove". They may not even realize it, but their mind is so tuned into what they want, they expect it. This expectation or "lane" creates a sort of light that "attracts" the muscle memory to respond.

If you train the mind to look for something specific through repetition than it tends to gravitate toward that stimuli. This is what is known as muscle memory. The mind begins to crystallize to a specific goal and the body responds instinctively.

In drill number two you will ask the pitcher to throw to a specific lane (zone), the blue zone or inner third of the plate; both height and width must be considered. Once thrown, his/her job is too simply say "yes" if the ball is in that lane (lane1) as it passes over the plate. The idea is to be so specific within the pitching lane that anything else becomes a "no". The first time you do this, you will find the pitcher guessing yes or no without truly seeing the lane. In time though, he/she will begin to relax (drill 1) and not only will the "yes's" become more consistent, but they will be called out with less "mental effort" as the ball makes its way to the lane.

This introduces a powerful mind/ body connection. To be able to throw/identify a pitch in a specific lane has so much to do with a clear, unassuming, disciplined mind.

Now have the pitcher do the same thing for lanes 2 and 3. Be careful about lane 2. We want the pitcher to avoid throwing right over the middle. However, in order for a pitcher to be able to avoid throwing to a specific lane, he/she must be able to identify it. The pitcher will still be expected to throw to lane 2 but only up high (at the letters) in the lane (on 0-2, or 1-2 counts) and low (middle thighs to knees) in the lane on first pitch strikes.

When a pitcher can throw from the mound with his/her mind at rating of 90-100, and his/her "yes's" are happening naturally and closer to release, then you know that his/her mind is being sculpted and developed just as his/her pitching mechanics have been developed. You also know that his/her mental skills are being ingrained, which leads to reliability in game situations. Remember that reliability leads to trust. Trust is the source of confidence.

Drill#3: Consequential Pitching
Ok, now that the pitcher can enter the area of subconscious (through practice) with a 90-100 state of mind, and has ingrained both his/her pitching lanes and those areas outside of his/her pitching lanes (only specific areas for lane 2), he/she is ready to work on the pressures of game situations. Through drill #3 you will be able to find out if the pitcher was able to maintain his/her practiced approach or whether or not he/she was affected by the "theoretical consequences of a game situation.

For drill number three, the coach will call out a specific situation (that tends to affect a pitcher's state of mind in game situations) while he/she is outside of the area of subconscious (i.e. bases loaded, 1 out).

Then the coach should remind him/her that the situation is irrelevant because his/her approach is all that matters. Depending on the count, the pitcher will choose a certain pitching lane. When he/she feels he/she is in his/her ideal state of mind, he/she will enter the area of subconscious, get his/her signal from the catcher, focus on the target, take a deep breath and let it out and visualize his/her pitching lane and tell himself/herself where the pitch is going (verbal affirmation) and make the pitch.

Can you imagine how much relief the mind has just by having the skill of getting into the area of subconscious without anything on it except for a pitching lane that's been pre-designed through muscle memory? Wouldn't it be nice to be on the mound in that area of subconscious, relaxed, with a clear mind, knowing that you can trust yourself to make the pitch that has been predetermined by your mind.

Pitching Essentials LLC would like to thank Alan Jaeger at jaegersports.com for his contributions to this article.

H. Ken Lewis

Copyright © 2004 H. Ken Lewis. All rights reserved.
No part of this content or the data or information included therein may be reproduced, republished or redistributed without the prior written consent of H. Ken Lewis

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