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<blockquote data-quote="DecaturJacket" data-source="post: 1164143" data-attributes="member: 7369">Yeah, you definitely don&#039;t want to live in the zone. Unless you&#039;re like Mariano Rivera and throwing your cutter every pitch it&#039;s probably not a good idea. My problem with our pitchers (for several seasons now) is that we tend to get ahead in counts and then leave the ball over WAY too much of the plate when we&#039;re up 0-2, 1-2. When a batter is forced to be defensive you don&#039;t want to give them pitches in the zone. Hopefully this is just an execution issue and not a philosophy issue. Again, my concern there is that this is something that I&#039;ve noticed for several seasons now. If the goal is just to throw a strike with no batter, I&#039;d hope our guys could get a fastball over 90+% of the time. If you&#039;re changing pitches that number drops, but realistically if there&#039;s no batter and you can start a breaking ball at a point where you&#039;re not concerned if it hangs over the middle, you should be able to execute it at a pretty high level too. Regarding Maddux, watch this (note that this is hitting spots, not just throwing strikes):[MEDIA=youtube]m0XoL7lri7o[/MEDIA]Hitting spots is where success lies. Throwing strikes could be laying pitches down the middle. In hs if you throw hard enough you can live in the middle because 90% of hitters won&#039;t be able to catch up to your fastball.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DecaturJacket, post: 1164143, member: 7369"] Yeah, you definitely don't want to live in the zone. Unless you're like Mariano Rivera and throwing your cutter every pitch it's probably not a good idea. My problem with our pitchers (for several seasons now) is that we tend to get ahead in counts and then leave the ball over WAY too much of the plate when we're up 0-2, 1-2. When a batter is forced to be defensive you don't want to give them pitches in the zone. Hopefully this is just an execution issue and not a philosophy issue. Again, my concern there is that this is something that I've noticed for several seasons now. If the goal is just to throw a strike with no batter, I'd hope our guys could get a fastball over 90+% of the time. If you're changing pitches that number drops, but realistically if there's no batter and you can start a breaking ball at a point where you're not concerned if it hangs over the middle, you should be able to execute it at a pretty high level too. Regarding Maddux, watch this (note that this is hitting spots, not just throwing strikes): [MEDIA=youtube]m0XoL7lri7o[/MEDIA] Hitting spots is where success lies. Throwing strikes could be laying pitches down the middle. In hs if you throw hard enough you can live in the middle because 90% of hitters won't be able to catch up to your fastball. [/QUOTE]

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