The Science Of Hitting -- And How It Relates To Pitching

Since moving to Boston a few weeks ago, one of the first things I've learned is that Bostonians love Dunkin Dounuts. The second thing I've learned is that Bostonians love their Red Sox.

The other day, while I was perusing the sports section at Barnes and Noble, I came across the classic Ted Williams book that he co-wrote with John Underwood called "The Science of Hitting." It's quite old, but I guess I'm not surprised to find it in Red Sox Nation. If you haven't read it, you should. It's go that famous picture of Mr. Williams in his batting stance with the colorful strike zone which shows you his batting averages for each of 75 or so locations in his strike zone. Sports Illustrated ran some articles on it many, many years ago.

Two things stood out to me while spending some time on those pages: 1) Williams, like most hitters I faced in professional baseball, crushed the fastball up in the zone (he hit nearly .400 on fastballs up); and 2) Williams had trouble with the low outside pitch (he hit about 150 points lower than any other part of the zone).

Next to Williams's book was a title by Leo Mazzone called "Pitch Like a Pro." It's not great, but had some decent tidbits about every third page or so. Mazzone suggests that of all the pitches in baseball, it's the low, outside fastball that sets up the inside part of the plate.

Mazzone wrote that all of the pitchers in the Atlanta Braves organization, where he was pitching coach for more than 15 years, lived on the outside part of the plate. And then, every so often -- to keep hitters honest -- his pitchers would pop one inside.

My point is two fold here.

One, that outside part of the plate is a good place to work. And while you can live out there on every pitch -- just like there's no one spot where you can live and be successful as a pitcher -- it's a good location to pitch to because even great hitters like Ted Williams would have trouble hitting you.

Two, you can learn a lot from reading baseball books. And although some books are certainly better than others, there's always something to gain inside each one -- even in a hitting book like Williams's "The Science of Hitting."

Yours in baseball,

Steven Ellis
The Complete Pitcher®
www.thecompletepitcher.com