It’s happened to every pitcher on a day in his career. In fact, it’s happened to every pitcher several times. All of a sudden, he just can’t throw strikes. He can’t find the strike zone. The few times he does, he’s getting hit.
It happened to Matt Harvey and C.C. Sabathia when they were in youth ball. It happened to Roger Clemens and Gerrit Cole in college. And as professional MLB players, it happened to Matt Cain in July 2013, and Nolan Ryan many times in his career. Yep, the Nolan Ryan that struck out more batters than any pitcher in the history of baseball by a wide margin also holds the record for most walks given up by a similarly significant gap.
What do coaches say to help this struggling young man? “C’mon, Johnny, just throw strikes.” This ranks up there with the dumbest things a coach can say to a pitcher. He’s in the most important position on his team. He’s in the spotlight. He wants to win for himself and his team. He doesn’t want to embarrass himself. Do you really think he doesn’t want to throw strikes? Coaches, please never say that to a struggling pitcher.
Then we do something equally as unproductive. We “go vanilla.” We call for fastball after fastball. “If he’s not getting his fastball over for strikes, let him just throw fastballs until he figures it out.” What? Can’t throw a strike with a fastball, so call for more fastballs? That’s sort of like trying to put out a fire with gasoline. It never made sense to me, and it rarely works.
According to my good friend Brent Strom, Pitching Coordinator of the St. Louis Cardinals, when a pitcher can’t find his release point on his fastball, you need to make him throw a curve or two. The pitcher needs to reacquire his feel, his release point. He needs to reorganize himself. Having him throw a couple of curve balls (or change ups) can be what he needs to get his release point back.
Just don’t ask for the very thing that’s not working. If he’s not locating his fastball, calling more fastballs will rarely fix things. “Going vanilla” probably won’t help.
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