One of the most common things I see working with pitchers—from youth baseball all the way through professional baseball—is that the physical mistake usually isn’t the first mistake.
The first mistake is often mental.
A bad call happens. The mound is terrible. A hitter gets a cheap hit. Somebody is chirping from the other dugout. Mom or Dad reacts in the stands. Suddenly, the pitcher is no longer processing the game in front of him. He is processing everything around it.
That is why I believe every young pitcher needs a pre-pitch routine.
When I was pitching at LSU, I had one without really knowing why it worked. Above the first-base stands, toward the top-left portion of the stadium, there was a scoreboard that became my reset spot. Between pitches, I would look up at it, rub the baseball in my hand, take a slow breath in through my nose and a slow breath out, then step back onto the mound.
This was long before pitch clocks, so I had more time than pitchers do today. But the purpose was the same: clear the last pitch, slow everything down and return my attention to what was actually in front of me.
I didn’t understand the science then but I do now.
