How To Practice Pitching To Stay Sharp Mentally And Physically

"The bullpen is a preparation, not an indicator."

--Harvey Dorfman, author of The Mental Game of Baseball

How many times have you heard a pitcher in the bullpen wonder out loud if his breaking ball was going to "show up" today. Pitchers at every level do it. Do you?

As a pitching coach and instructor, I believe it is critical for a baseball pitcher to view his time in the bullpen as time to get things to work instead of a time to find out if they work. It is amazing to me how often pitchers see their daily "stuff" as a sort of lottery … either they show up with winning stuff or they approach the game with inquisitive looks on their faces because of feelings from a poorly executed bullpen.

While I was certainly guilty of this in my career at times, I have since learned that pitchers have a lot more control of this than they likely think. It involves several different facets of preparation and all of them contribute to who "shows up" on the mound for the next start. The Mental Game of Baseball book is a great place to start. I encourage you to work on it.

Comments

[Dan Gazaway]

I also believe it is critical for a pitcher to view his time in the bullpen as time to get things to work instead of time to find out if they work.
Before your bullpen warm up to throw instead of throwing to warm up. When you throw the baseball you are leveraging your entire body to throw the baseball; not just your arm.
I bring that up here because the bullpen can be a time to ensure your mechanics are up to par. I always teach my students to throw with a purpose anytime they throw. Always work on something.