baseballdelusions.com

Today was an excellent individual effort day, despite two losses. I went 5-for-7 on the day, all of them singles. I smashed a hanging curve foul pretty far, so the power is still there, but the tinkering of the swing has clearly positively affected my bat control and probably negatively affected my power. That’s fine; I’ll take a higher batting average and more solid contact numbers over doubles. It’s easier to work on power after finalizing a good line drive stroke.

My pitching today wasn’t great, going 4 innings and allowing 4 earned runs with two walks and no strikeouts, but I’m still not at 100%. The control was decent but not great, the velocity was below average, and the breaking ball was not sharp. That being said, I located the fastball fairly well, mainly working inside to practice hitting that spot (I have historically had problems pitching inside to right-handed hitters). My shoulder’s at 90%, and I was giving about 85% effort on all my pitches. After a bullpen session on Monday with Jacob and Otto, I think I’ll have the confidence and the mechanics down to really work more on velocity.

Speaking of velocity, it’s clear that throwing upper 70’s and occasionally hitting lower 80’s isn’t going to cut it. I know that location is more important than velocity and blah blah blah, but it’s time to stop kidding myself and face reality: I just have to throw harder. By next year, I want to be throwing mid-80’s consistently with a plus-rated changeup and a reasonable out pitch. It’s going to take at least that to succeed in the Baker leagues of PSSBL, where most of the players have varsity high school or higher experience.

But enough reflection on what I have to do. I’m really happy with the new swing mechanics I’m working with, and I really believe that I’ve found a good line drive stroke that will turn into consistent gap power. I was never a true “power” hitter in the first place - years of “level swing” instruction have basically seen to that. Many thanks to the guys at Baseball-Fever in the Baseball 101 section - their articles and forum posts on rotational hitting really helped me turn it around.

Now, it’s time to relax. I have a 9 AM game tomorrow.

Hitting Stats:
.377/.442/.536 over 77 PA / 69 AB
26 H, 9 2b, 1 3b, 11 RBI, 13 R, 8 SB, 5 K, 5 BB, 3 HBP

Pitching stats:
2-2, 8.75 ERA
25.7 IP, 19 H, 25 BB, 13 K, 25 ER