baseballdelusions.com

We had a rematch against the River Dogs today at 4 PM out in Sammamish. We lost to them 14-0 last time in an effort that had our pitchers (including me) walking everyone on their team. It was pretty embarassing.

Today, we got revenge to the tune of 12-8. Cole (our college pitcher) went 5 innings and allowed 3 runs, only one of them earned.

As for my individual performance, I went 2-4 at the plate with a single, a double, and a run scored.

First at-bat: Runners at first and second, 1 out.
-Fastball high/inside, ball
-Fastball high/inside, ball
-Fastball down the middle, strike
-Slider; I roll over on it and hit it up the middle for a fielder’s choice (2nd base).
-I take second on defense indifference.

Second at-bat: Leading off the inning.
-Fastball high/inside, ball
-Slider inside, strike
-Slider inside; I get jammed and hit an infield single. Somehow I end up on third base due to throwing and fielding errors. I score later in the inning.

Third at-bat: Leading off the inning.
-Fastball in the dirt, ball
-Fastball outside, strike
-Curveball down the middle, I make solid contact and lace it into left-field for a double.

Fourth at-bat: Leading off the inning.
-Fastball down the middle, strike
-Curve outside, ball
-Fastball inside; I jam myself again and break my bat on the routine 6-3 groundout.

Not a great day at the plate, but I’ll take the .500 batting average and the team win.

Hitting stats updated:

.394/.487/.576 over 39 PA / 33 AB
13 H, 7 2b, 8 RBI, 10 R, 6 SB, 4 K, 4 BB, 2 HBP

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In Feburary I said this on another forum I frequent:

Quote:

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I would like to start throwing at my college peak velocity again, which was in the mid-80’s. I would like to hit a significant amount of doubles and steal a significant amount of bases, and become a very good amateur league player.

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My Goals for the Summer:
-Throw strikes consistantly
-Hit one home run
-Steal 15 bases
-Lose 15 pounds

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On June 16th the Pirates hosted the White Sox. In the third inning, John Van Benschoten struck out Tadahito Iguchi looking on a 1-2 count with an offspeed pitch. The announcers couldn’t tell what kind of pitch it was - the slow motion video and grip clearly show a grip that is the exact same thing as the two-seam gyroball grip from Himeno and Tezuka’s book.

The action on the pitch is extremely similar to video of known pitchers who throw the gyroball. Was Van Benschoten taught how to throw the gyroball, or is this a variant of the slider (think Matsuzaka’s pronation slider)?

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Here is a high-speed analysis of a real pitcher trained by Himeno on how to throw the gyroball. It is filmed from the batter’s box of a RH hitter.

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Gyroball Realization

Dr. Alan Nathan was kind enough to send me a copy of the gyroball DVD that is published by Beta Endorphin, a Japanese dojo for baseball staffed by both Drs. Himeno and Tezuka, original creators of the gyroball. The video is entirely in Japanese, but after viewing it tonight, I was able to pick up on a lot of clues. You may notice that almost all Japanese pitchers have extremely similar mechanics. This held true in the Seattle League, where a significant amount of the players were Japanese-born students in America. Most of the pitching instruction follows a specific agreed-upon set of guidelines with regard to leg kick, foot plant, arm action, and weight shift. One of specific mechanics that is pointed out in the gyroball video (and in the book) involves “Elbow Targetting.”

At face value, it sounds like the idea that you target the catcher’s glove with your glove arm elbow for control purposes. This is exactly what I thought it was, because it’s a very common cue told to pitchers by their coaches. In actuality, “Elbow Targetting” means pointing the throwing side arm elbow at the catcher’s mitt when you are halfway through the arm action and after the chest thrust towards home. In doing so, it seems like control can improve, but the benefit I see for myself is improved velocity due to a shorter arm action and a delayed arm throughout the entirety of the motion. Pretty interesting stuff I hope to work on the next time I’m out on the field.

New Video Editing Software

Previously for my videos I was using Studio 10 for simple editing and analysis, which got the job done fairly well. However, Carlos Gomez turned me on to V1Sports. After demo’ing it and working with it a bit, I am absolutely sold on picking up a copy to use for myself, Jacob, and my students over the summer. The editing capabilities are outstanding. Look for more involved videos in the coming months!

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Hey everyone, we’re moving all the content over to this WordPress blog instead of Joomla. It’s easier to maintain and allows for easy comments. We’ll be relaunching fairly soon with more periodic updates, and all the videos will be tagged and uploaded. For now, you can see them all at the YouTube archive at http://www.youtube.com/baseballdelusions.

Thanks for sticking around!

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Hitting stats:
.379/.486/.586 over 35 PA / 29 AB
11 H, 6 2b, 8 RBI, 9 R, 6 SB, 4 K, 4 BB, 2 HBP

Pitching stats:
2-1, 8.64  ERA
17.7 IP, 12 H, 21 BB, 12 K, 17 ER

Game breakdown for Sunday’s loss will come later.

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