On MLB Tonight, Bill Ripken takes a look at all of the options a pitcher has to be able to dominate and attack hitters. LIKE us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter @MLBNetwork and check out MLBNetwork.com for more content!
Played along with kids in HS who went DI. Batted against kids throwing in the 90s. And yet, the best pitcher I ever faced was a 5’5” kid from a small school with a 65 mph fast ball. And the kid only had 2 pitches! 2 seamer and a cutter. Every pitch started in the middle of the plate, but always ended up on the black; and you had no idea which way it was going to break until it was too late. You don’t have to have great ‘stuff’. If you can hit your spots and mix pitches, you will be successful.
Uh, they would be better if Billy Ripken weren't such a cartoon. The information and examples are all interesting, but Ripken's presentation is idiotic: Show video of Kershaw changing location and speed -- setting hitters up. Great, that's pretty easy. But imagine someone from another country, sincerely trying to learn baseball. If you weren't sitting alongside -- interpreting for him -- he would be completely unable to understand Ripken's harebrained explanation. I have a friend from South Africa who didn't grow up playing baseball as we did, but would like to have a deeper understanding of the game. I looked at this video to see if I could send it to him, but realized that if I weren't sitting alongside to interpret, he'd have no idea what the hell Ripken is talking about. Any idiot can show video of Kershaw changing speed and changing location, or of Hamels or Maddux painting corners. Ripken adds nothing. He's like all the bad teachers we've ever had.
At 01:17 IF the batter takes as he should the count becomes ball 1. Look at the graphic. It is the top of the 1st inning. Kershaw has thrown 11 pitches to the first 3 batters, all of whom are on base. So the situation is bases loaded, nobody out. No batter who knows how to hit would be swinging at the first pitch. Kershaw is already in a hole. Take the pitch, it's ball 1, and Kershaw is deeper into the hole. A batter in this situation hitting the first pitch opens the possibility of hitting into a double play and letting Kershaw off the hook by throwing a single pitch. That is a pitcher's wet dream.
At 01:21 the batter takes the second pitch because he is sitting on high fast-ball and the ball is LOW. It is an easy take, totally predictable even for a batter that is mired in a slump as this batter obviously is.
At 01:23 look at the batter's lead foot, how high it is in the air. He is already committed to the pitch. And Kershaw has not yet shown him the ball. This is the reason the batter is in a slump: he is committing too early.
At 01:24 the batter shows he knows the next pitch is going to be low and outside. But the batter does not know how to make the adjustment. His swing is pathetic but worse he is showing Kershaw he cannot hit an outside pitch.
So at 01:29 Kershaw does what pitchers do to batters with 2-strike counts. He buries him with the Deuce in the dirt. Strike-out! But wait. A pitcher cannot bury the batter with a runner on third. Look at the catcher's 5-hole. The catcher is lucky he got a good bounce. That pitch could easily have gone to the backstop scoring a run. Kershaw despite his salary does not know how to pitch.
So to sum up this at-bat what the batter should have done is just stood there with his bat on his shoulder. He struck out on 3 bad pitches. If instead he took that first pitch like he should have he would have walked on 4 pitches. And if Kershaw had changed his strategy when the count went 2 and Oh, Kersh would have had to groove a fast-ball over the plate just to throw a strike. And then the batter, because he showed batting skills, would get a meat-ball to hit with the potential to take it yard for a granny.
As someone who doesn’t know much about baseball and started playing mlb the show I’m scared on how I was naturally pitching like he said in the game just by instinct 😂
