Tuesday, June 20, 2006

Am I a jerky jerk?

I pitched one inning during the game. It was the fourth inning, and we were up 10-2. With one out, one of their female kickers came up. She looked at two pitches over the plate for strikes, and then one ball way outside. I then threw kind of an overarm pitch that breaks left-to-right instead of right-to-left that, if you've never seen it before, doesn't look like it has a chance to curving into the strike zone until it skips across at the tail end. She stood there and watched it go by for strike three.

The question is: should I have thrown that pitch, knowing that there was a good chance she would strike out? Being up 10-2, should I have just thrown normal pitches over the plate and given her a chance to kick? My feeling is no: the only way they are going to learn is by failing, and the lesson there is to a) not let two kickable balls go first and b) you have to try and kick it if it's close with two strikes.

Also, does this mean that I'm going to be a "tough love" kind of Dad? Like, "the only way Figgy will learn to not jam something into the electrical socket is to do it once."

No comments: