Too many pitchers throw well through 4 or 5 innings but let the game get away from them at the end. Discover why this happens and the 7 things you can do to help your pitcher Dominate the End of the Game!

While pitching isn’t easy, closing out a game can be even harder. Have you ever wondered why your pitcher’s can do so well up to a certain point in the game only to have the whole thing fall apart on them? Unfortunately it happens to lots of pitchers so find out what you can do to stop it!

There are lots of difference factors that are at work toward the end of a 7 inning softball game and once you understand these factors it becomes much easier to figure out why so many pitchers start to lose it at the end.

At the beginning of the game pitchers are pumped up! They’re energized, focused and newly warmed-up so they’ve got lots of good things going for them. Once the game gets going and we enter the 4th or 5th inning things begin to change, and sometimes they can change drastically!

By the 5th inning the following factors are starting to have an impact on the pitcher and on the game itself:

1. Batters are coming up for their 3rd at-bats – This means that the good hitters have seen you before and are ready for what you have pitched them their previous 2 at-bats. They’re ready for the pitches you have, but most importantly, they’re ready for the order in which you pitched them. So, if you’re going to get good hitters out at the end of the game you have got to change things up so they can’t anticipate correctly what you’re going to throw and when.
2. Pitchers can get bored and let their minds/focus wander – Too many pitchers start to get bored during the later part of a game, particularly if it seems to be going really well and almost getting easy. That’s a sure sign that trouble is right around the corner because as soon as a pitcher starts thinking about “easy” or “hard” they are no longer thinking about the details they need to take care of business but instead, are getting too big of a view of the situation which is harmful to performance.
3. Pitchers can get tired and start to slip physically – Depending on the weather (heat, humidity, cold), where you are in your season or the number of innings and/or games a pitcher has pitched previously the end of a 7 inning game can become a physical struggle.  If your pitcher is losing games because she’s not strong enough to finish then she needs to get in much better shape. This is the easiest element to control and should never be an issue for a pitcher.
4. The game gets close and pitchers start to tighten up – Games can get close near the end, or a game that was always close (1 or 2 run game) suddenly just gets near the end, and the pitcher starts to think more about the end of the game then she does about the details for pitching good. Anytime a player shifts her mind from little picture to big picture it shifts her performance from taking care of little details to making big mistakes. We know how this movie ends…
5. Umpires get tired and their strike zone starts to change (either drastically or slightly) – In spite of what some of us think, umpires are human and they do get tired. In fact, most umpires are much older than the players they are umpiring, and not all of them are in the best of shape. This isn’t meant as a criticism but as simply an observation. For every deep knee bend (squat) that your catcher is doing the umpire is doing 2 (one for each catcher), so naturally that umpire will get a little tired toward the end of the game. As umpires get tired their vision gets a little off – and that’s why the strike zone typically shifts around the 4th or 5th inning.

OK – so we now know all the various factors tugging at a pitcher as she nears the end of a game, but what can she do about them? Fortunately there are some things we can do as coaches to help our pitchers more successfully handle the end of the game.

We can help pitchers understand that umpires typically get tired around the 4th – 5th inning from all those squats so we should expect the strike zone to change and be ready for it as soon as it does. As pitchers we want to take pride in our ability to out-adjust the other pitcher so when the umpire changes the strike zone we want to be ready for it, notice it and then immediately adjust to it. Complaining about it is what the losing pitcher will do – that’s not us! In practice we want our pitchers throwing pitch sequences against the other pitchers on our team and the catchers not only catching the pitches but calling balls and strikes as well. Then our catchers should suddenly changing the strike zone and start calling a completely different strike zone and the pitcher that figures it out and adjusts to it the fastest wins!

By learning to better use our minds as pitchers we can make immediate and appropriate adjustments in competition. Understanding that the mind is a body part just like any other body part the pitcher can start to talk to, strengthen and improve her mind and learn how to use it better just as she does her other body parts.

Successful pitching requires constantly making adjustments to things like:

• The umpire slightly changing the zone
• The batter slightly changing her approach on her next at-bat
• A particular pitch that was great during warm-ups and is flat as a board in the game
• Or an infielder that suddenly starts fielding groundballs with her ankles.
• All skills require making adjustments but pitching requires the most and the fastest ones and all great pitchers have a great ability to control their mind instead of letting it control them.

Here are 7 Steps pitchers can take to Control the End of the Game:

• Expect the Strike Zone to Change
• Adjust to the Change as Soon as You Notice it
• Know it Changes for the Hitters Too
• Practice with Strike Zones that Change
• Don’t Fight It or Complain About It – Adjust To It!
• Get in Shape!
• Understand Why it Happens (umpire doing about 450 deep knee bends by the end of the 5th inning)