In my opinion there is nothing more vital to a pitcher than his confidence. Therefore it deserves a few separate blogs. Here is part 1; the greatest attribute you can have as a pitcher is to be 100% confident in your ability. I even encourage our guys to be cocky. I want them to believe they are the best college pitchers in the country. You don't yield to anyone. This year we open up against Florida Gulf Coast and on Friday night their ace is probably going to be a stud. So what! I want our Friday guy to think, "I'll show him I can pitch too." That is the great thing about sports, there have been great upsets and it all starts with having the confidence to say I'm pretty good too!
Now their is a difference between being cocky and arrogant. Arrogant people like to talk about themselves and brag about all the great things they have done in their career. Now if someone asks you if you think you are good there is nothing wrong with saying Hell Ya I'm good I think I can beat anyone. You want guys like that on your team. Cocky people have ultimate self confidence in their ability and let their actions do the talking. Now, the test is if you go out there one day and get absolutely shelled. Can you look yourself in the mirror and say "hey it was only one day but I'm still a good pitcher and I will be better next time out." If you can ever get to the point where you have just thrown a complete game shutout and you feel exactly the same about your ability as you do on days you stunk, now you got something. Personally, I always tried to get to that point and I still haven't been able to do it. It is a very hard to have enough confidence to stay even keel over the course of a season.
I have played with countless pitchers who performed way above their ability because they truly believed that they were better than they actually were. A confident pitcher stands on the mound and believes he can get anyone, ANYONE, if Babe Ruth steps in the box I am going to find a way to get him out. I know you have all heard it before but hitters that get a hit 3 out of 10 times in the big leagues get to the hall of fame. That means 7 out of 10 times they are outs. Sure some days a guy on the other team will light you up but the next time up you should feel just as confident that you can get him out. As an athlete you let the results dictate how we feel about yourself. So when you shove you feel great and when you get lit up you think you stink. You are never as good or bad as any individual outing. This is the hardest thing to do as a pitcher. If you can get to the point where the result of any outing does not change how you feel, you got something special. Few can honestly do this.
Now being confident sounds easy enough, but you forget that fear is always trying to crush your confidence. Everyone experiences fear on the mound, if you say you have never felt it you are lying to yourself. Most Fear FAILURE. Failure is in the future, Failure is the unknown, as athletes we fear that. Let me yield to Auggie Garrido right now watch this video it is one of my favorites of all time:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96977oEzf0c
The Demon is fear, the warrior is confidence and they battle it out. As Pitchers we fear the outcome. We don't want to fail. As a competitor it is embarrassing to fail, to say that guy beat me today hurts the ego. Only Great pitchers accept the fact the YOU WILL STINK once in a while. Instead we ignore this truth and pretend like we can prevent it. Take Justin Verlander for example, Overall he had an incredible 2011 season the included winning the AL MVP and CY Young awards. However, even Verlander had bad outings in 2011. On May 24 against Tampa Bay he pitched 6 innings and gave up 9 hits and 6 earned runs while only striking out only 2. By any standards that is a bad outing. However, Verlander did not let this affect his confidence and went out the next time against Boston and threw 7.2 innings of scoreless baseball. That's what excellent pitchers with great confidence do. Verlander knew that he had a bad start but had enough confidence in himself to believe that the next time out he would be better. Your entire career you will have to fight the battle between confidence and fear, don't ignore the presence of fear, acknowledge it and combat it with your ultimate confidence in yourself.
I will stop there for today, in my next post we will talk more about your body language and composure on the mound. It is key to showing your teammates and opponents that you are confident no matter what situation presents itself during the course of a game.
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