Baseball Pitching Tips - Composure on the Mound is Critical For You!

By Larry Cicchiello

To constantly improve, pitchers quite often work on their control and improving the quality and consistency of their pitches. Let me be very bold and tell you that if you are NOT able to maintain your composure on the mound, you had better start working on that also!

You work on control, you work on the fastball, you work on breaking balls and you better work on your composure just as seriously. Having good composure is a very important part of a pitcher's arsenal of weapons. You can have "great stuff" but if you lose your composure, isn't the benefit of having "great stuff" severely diminished?

NEVER let a bad pitch affect your next pitch. I admit, this is easier said than done. What can be helpful is to allow yourself three seconds to be upset and then totally let it go. Have this understanding with yourself ahead of time and stick to it. Three seconds, that's it.

My son has a friend, who is a crafty left-hander who pitched in high school in 2007 and now pitches in college. In his senior year of high school, he really impressed a college scout. He gave up a tremendous home run over the left field fence. The scout who came to watch him, told him after the game that the bomb is a part of the game and is NO big deal at all. What the scout was impressed with was that after the bomb, he calmly struck out the next batter on three pitches and maintained his composure! College scouts have a tendency to be extremely sharp baseball people. They look for composure in a baseball player and realize the importance of it. The scout never mentioned his six innings, three hits, two earned runs, eight strikeouts and only two walks. Hopefully, just as the college scout realized, you will realize the importance of maintaining your composure.

Please don't ever let a bad pitch get the better of you. You are not going to strike out every batter on three pitches. You are not going to pitch a shutout every time out. You are not going to pitch a no hitter every time out. The only certainties in baseball pitching are that you ARE going to make some mistakes and sometimes things are just not going to go your way.

Allow yourself three seconds to be upset and then get back to work. If someone hit a bomb off you ten seconds ago, it's the same as if it was hit twenty years ago. It is in the history books. The same with an error by one of your teammates. The same with a bloop hit. If you truly want to be a good pitcher, your only thought process should be on making your next pitch a quality pitch.

You can not rewrite the history books. The only pitch that matters is the next one you throw.

Please "let it go" and get back to work!

Larry is the president of Larwenty Online Enterprises Inc and is also the author of "Excellent Baseball Coaching: 30 Seconds Away." If you are a baseball player or baseball coach at any level of play, or a parent who wants to help your child improve, you will be fully equipped! His baseball website offers several FREE baseball tips from his very informative and very fairly priced eBooks.

Larry's baseball website is http://www.larrybaseball.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Larry_Cicchiello

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