How to Watch Baseball

Smart Pitching

Control or Chaos

Robin Roberts, from the photograph printed with his chapter.

By Robin Roberts,Pitcher, Philadelphia Phillies

Pages 4–5 · Phillips Petroleum Company, 1953

If there were no more to pitching than the ability to throw a smoking fast ball or break off a sharp curve, big, strong rookies would step into the major leagues and win from the start. Frequently, they throw a much better fast ball and curve than do consistently successful veterans. But no pitcher can win on stuff alone. In fact, no pitcher can win at all unless he has control.

Control means more than getting the ball over the plate. It means the ability to put the ball, a large percentage of the time, in a specific spot in the strike zone.

It is essential, of course, that a pitcher study and learn the weaknesses of a batter: his blind spots; the kind of a pitch he likes to hit. But all this knowledge means nothing unless the pitcher has enough control to put the ball where he wants it. No pitcher can accomplish this all the time; but he must be able to do it most of the time.

It is important for the pitcher to stay ahead of the batter. For example: one strike and no balls; two strikes and one ball; two strikes and no balls. Staying ahead improves his chances of making the batter hit the pitch the pitcher wants him to. A pitcher gives up most of the damaging hits in a game after he gets behind the batter in the count — one ball and no strikes, two balls and no strikes, three balls and no strikes, two balls and one strike — and has to come into the strike zone with a soft pitch.

The pitcher engages in a battle of wits with each batter. Beginning with the first pitch, the batter guesses when the pitcher will throw the kind of ball he is waiting for. The pitcher is aware of this. He tries to keep the batter from guessing correctly. When he thinks the batter is leaning for an outside ball, he pitches it in close. When he thinks the batter is waiting to pull an inside pitch, he keeps the ball away from him. He wants to prevent the batter from getting his bat on more than a small piece of the ball.

In trying to fool the batter, the pitcher benefits from the ability to throw the ball with various speeds from the same motion. This is known as change-of-pace. It prevents the batter from correctly gauging the speed of the ball on successive pitches. If a pitcher can throw his fast ball at several different speeds and deliver a slow as well as a fast curve, he is just as well off as if he had five or six different pitches — like sliders, knucklers, sinkers, screw balls, etc.

Probably there is no better pitch than a live, fast ball, provided a pitcher can keep it where he wants it. This pitch breaks sharply just as the batter swings at it. The batter may not miss it completely as often as he misses a sharp curve, but he will only get enough of his bat on it to produce a fly ball or a grounder.

So the next time you go to the ball park,

Pitching to SpotsDangerzoneStrike zone12345
  1. 1To force a pull-hitter to pop up, pitch high, fast ball here.
  2. 2High, fast ball here will bother batter who is leaning over the plate.
  3. 3A high curve breaking here is likely to be lifted out of the park. This is the danger zone.
  4. 4Pitch here to keep batter from pulling.
  5. 5Break curve to this spot to force infield grounder or foul.
Adapted from the diagram on page 5: “Control means more than getting the ball over the plate. It means getting the ball, most of the time, in a specific spot in the strike zone.”