Friday, June 6, 2014

Maybe Fans Shouldn't

I decided to write to post when, several times, during the games I've been watching today fans booed it when the pitcher threw to first second or third base to pick off a runner. Now I understand why fans do it because it puts a damper on the action of the game and makes the pitcher seem I guess cowardly as if their running away from the current batter, and the thought I guess is that the booing will stop the pitcher from keeping up the pickoff attempts. However ts is actually a good thing for our team, why you ask? Well that's because this part of the game is a major part of the mental game in baseball and yea yea I understand that doesn't equal on field excitement, but the result of it often does. You see a pitcher is throwing a ball at speeds between 75-95+ mph over a distance of 60 feet, 6 inches and that requires a LOT of concentration. When the pitcher throws a pick off attempt it divides the pitchers attention, all of a sudden their trying to concentrate on pitching to the current batter as well as keeping an eye on the runner to ensure they know if he's going for a steal. As a result pitchers often end up giving up hits or having lacklustre control during these times because of this divide of attention, hell there are even times where this can lead to throwing errors due to bad pick off throws. In summary don't boo pick off attempts by opposing pitchers, it means that the runner on base is getting to the pitcher and he is likely to faulter fairly soon.

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