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Saturday, November 12, 2011
Pitching is simple… Brian Bannister made it complicated
So speaks Bob McClure, with another HR from Laurilia:
Banny had a heck of a year [in 2007], but it got in his head that the way he was pitching wasn’t good enough. You’re talking about a guy who was third or fourth in Rookie of the Year voting and who won 12 games. He said, “I’m giving up too many fly balls.” I said, “Yeah, but they’re mis-hitting them, because you have deception and because of the way your pitches come in.”
He tried to get guys to do this and do that. He got into the rotation of the baseball. He got into where hitters hit their extra-base hits and what the best pitches are to throw to them. He started subscribing to all of that and getting into the terminology. I mean, he’s a very bright kid; he went to Stanford. He got into things like how the ball was turning, and to me, it’s not that complicated.
As a pitcher, what I’m trying to do is keep you off balance just enough, and locate my pitches. I’m trying to get ahead in the count, keep you off balance, and make pitches. That’s all I’m trying to do. I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that. The first three pitches are the most important ones you throw. If you can get to 1-2 on three quarters of the batters you face, you’re probably going to have a good game.
Banny got a little overboard and tried to do more than he was capable of doing. The next thing you know, his walks go up and his hits go up. He’s trying to sink the ball instead of what he was doing in the first place, which was commanding his fastball and his cutter. It kind of turned into a mess.
Banny was convicted in what he was doing and I don’t think anyone was going to change his mind. Now, that being said, I think that if he was 100-percent healthy… he had some very good points in wanting to sink the ball a little bit and get the ball on the ground a little more. He could maybe not take as many pitches to put a hitter away by getting them to hit it on the ground. He had some very good points, it’s just that we’re dealing with someone whose shoulder, here and there… as far as health, at times it was difficult to do enough work in order for him to get where he wanted to be.
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