Pitch Counts: 3 Ways To Maximize Strikes And Lower Pitch Counts

As a baseball pitcher, it's important to throw efficient innings; it's important to be effective with as few baseball pitches as possible. This will help lower your pitch counts, improve your durability over the course of the long baseball season, and position yourself to be successful at the end of the day.

Three things to think about are as follows:

1. Throw two out of three pitches for strikes.

2. End 75% of all at-bats within three pitches.

3. End 100% of all at-bats within five pitches.

In order to end at-bats quickly, you must maximize the number of strikes you throw early in the count. In other words, you must be aggressive and throw strikes on the first three pitches. Make the hitter put the ball in play. The way to do this is to throw a first pitch strike. That first strike is the soul of every pitcher's success.

MLB pitching statistics show that pitchers who throw first-pitch strikes generally do well. Those who don't throw first-pitch strikes generally struggle.

MLB pitching statistics also show that pitchers give up base hits on fewer than 10% of their first-pitch strikes.

The takeaway is this: Go right after the hitter on the first pitch!