re: Mainieri says hitting coach is overrated

It's our overall approach that has me worried. It seems that every series this year (with the exception of Friday night vs Baxendale) the whole offensive gameplay was built around taking pitches and trying to get the starting pitchers pitch count up so we can get into the other teams bullpen. That's great if it works, but our guys don't seem to understand how to hit. For the most part, it seems like its take first, then "see ball, hit ball".

Look at the at bats Jankowski had Friday and saturday. When Cotton came in the game we pounded him inside early and often. He recognized it, and was able to turn on a ball and drove it down the right field line. Fast forward to his AB's against Gausman. Again, Gausman pounded him in, except now, Jankowski quits trying to pull it (because he knows he can't vs Gausman) and start inside-outing every pitch foul until he gets something he can handle. I'm sure there are plenty of other examples, this one just stands out in my mind

This is something he was taught. Yes, good hitters are going to hit, but to be taught pitchers tendencies and to have a deeper gameplan than "hit line drives up the middle because the pitcher is their worst fielder" is something that a hitting coach has to be able to teach for a team to achieve success at the highest level in college baseball. Just my opinion

Oh and if our coaches really thought that we were going to wear their pitchers down, they obviously didn't pay attention to SB's pitch counts in their regional

quote:

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Teams know this and throw it right down the middle.

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For the sake of argument, just consider this.

If every hitter takes a first pitch strike, and the opposing pitcher throws a no-no, that makes him throw an extra 27 pitches per 9 innings. In reality, using the take til first pitch strike probably adds an average of 6 pitches per inning to a pitchers total. You get to the 6th (typically min of what you want out of a starter) that's a 36 pitch difference. For a pitcher, there's a big difference between 70 pitches, and 106 pitches.

Its not a bad philosophy to have if your hitters are coached to be patient. A 15 pitch at bat that ends up with the hitter striking out is not necessarily a bad thing, especially against a team that doesn't have quality bullpen depth. This is the part where that whole hitting coach thing becomes a little important.