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As a coach, do you want your girls taking the first pitch, or do you give them the green light?
cshilt said:I agree with Rich & thetruth. I can add a couple of situations where you might want to take the 1st pitch.
- 1st pitch of the game.
- Runner stealing.
Hilliarddad3 said:I agree with Truth on this one. If it's there go get it unless you have the takes sign going.
Mine would rather start off 0-2 as she is a dead eye for some reason with two strikes. Drives her coaches nuts, but she focuses more and more with it the last two years and is getting on with two strikes on her regularly and pushing counts to full count as well...
She doesn't feel pressure at those times for some reason and just goes with it. It's funny how different kids in the same family react to different situations, she's like ice, another would be nervous with it but is younger and still learning....
Uncle_Bubba said:I was having this conversation with several other coaches last year. ?I was getting frustrated early on in the season when the girls would pop-up, or hit easy outs swinging at the first pitch. ?Several games in a row we would let the pitchers off the hook with 5-6 pitch innings. ?My personal feeling is that the first pitch will be the best pitch, and always drilled that into my players heads. ?They certainly listened. ?My assistant recommended that we start making them take the first pitch. ?It was hard for me to hear, since I was always a firm believer in my way. ? However, It had gotten tough to be committed to that philosophy when instead of 0-2, we were already staring at 2 outs. ?Tough to get anything going. ?I started making my team take the first pitch. ?I was suprised that our "at bats" got better. ?We went deeper into the counts, and made the pitchers work. ?We put more runners on base, and subsequently scored more runs. ?It was a dramatic difference. ?I do not tell the girls to take the first pitch as a rule, I just don't drill it into them that they should be swinging at it.
I learned a valuable lesson. ?There are very few strategical absolutes in this game. ?As a coach and a teacher of the game, I try to keep myself open minded enough to try new things, even if they seem unconventional.