I throw the ball ninety-two miles an hour, but they hit it back just as hard.
There's no easier pitch to hit than a splitter that doesn't do anything.
I only know one way to pitch. I really do.
I could run, but I was throwing 93 mph coming out of high school.
Fastball middle-middle. You can't miss that pitch.
I use fast curves, pitched overhand and sidearm, fastballs, high and inside, and an underhand fade away pitch with the hand almost down to the level of the knees.
I consciously memorized the speed at which every pitcher in the league threw his fastball, curve, and slider. Then, I'd pick up the speed of the ball in the first 30 feet of its flight and knew how it would move once it has crossed the plate.
It's not fun facing a ball going 97 mph, trust me.
When I'm at the plate, I'm not thinking about what I'm trying to do with the bat - I'm thinking about what the pitcher is trying to do with the ball.
I've got a fastball, change-up, forkball, curve, slider, knuckle-slider, knuckle-curve, I had about seven pitches I could have used at any time.
If you can't see the rotation and tell if it's a sink - a fastball, then you have to be able to tell whether that fastball is a two-seamer or a four-seamer. You have to be able to recognize if it's a slider or a curveball. You have to be able to recognize if it's a changeup or a split-finger.
In my bullpen sessions, I'm just trying to feel comfortable, throw strikes, and not get too complicated.
If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.
I was short with my fastball and breaking ball.
When you can throw 97 miles an hour and put the ball over the plate anytime you want, it's fun.
If I can execute pitches and keep the ball out of the middle of the plate, I know I can have success.
Because I have so much life on my pitches, I can get away with getting too much of the plate every now and then.
I'm not executing my pitches. I'm not commanding my fastball, and I get behind in the count. When I try to throw strikes, I'm getting hurt. That's not the way I pitch.
Ken Holtzman could pitch a game in ninety minutes. Wouldn't throw a breaking ball. And he had a great breaking ball.
The big thing will be having two pitches you can throw for strikes and developing a change-up, too.
I'm looking to generate strikeouts in every way I can.
Sandy Koufax is a great teacher. He just talks about competitiveness and being aggressive - about stride length, power, how to spin the breaking ball. The way he explains pitching is simple, which is something you don't see a lot.
I became a good pitcher when I stopped trying to make them miss the ball and started trying to make them hit it.
Maybe I'm biased because I'm a pitcher, but I think that's pretty cool that a guy can throw a ball 100 miles an hour.
That's why it's so important to have that gap between your fastball and off-speed pitches: then, when you effectively locate your fastball, it plays at a higher velocity.
