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Ball Four, Thank Goodness!
by Dave
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Here's the situation:
You're up 3-2 in the last inning with two outs and runners on 2nd and 3rd. The only kid your pitcher hasn't been able to get out is stepping to the plate. She launched balls into the woods in her previous two at-bats, the only blemishes in what would otherwise be a perfectly good no hitter. The two runners on are the only other baserunners your opponent has had this game. They walked and were bunted over. Everyone else has whiffed, except this kid coming to the plate. It took 5 minutes to find a usable game ball after this kid's last at-bat because the first home run was never found and the more recent one was hit further than that into the brush. What should you do?
Walk her, of course. That's easy enough, right?
There's more than one way to skin a cat but let's assume that you want to issue an intentional walk for any reason at all. What is a relatively simple matter in baseball seems to be one of the most difficult plays to pull off in fastpitch softball. Why is that?
I was watching a game between team USA and Arizona, broadcast on ESPN2 a few nights ago. Arizona wanted to walk the most dangerous hitter on the planet, Bustos. The freshman pitcher for AZ set up to issue an intentional walk. She went into a normal wind-up, spun and issued her first offering. The catcher stood in proper position and stepped out to catch the pitch at the right moment. The first one sailed ... right down the center of the plate about waist high! Bustos wasn't ready to swing. She never anticipated a strike. There's a lesson in that but not one we have time for today. The umpire was barely looking at the pitch, missed the call, and, of course, called it a ball. The attempt to just put a runner on base nearly ended in disaster.
The USA vs. Arizona game was not a close affair. A mistake in that situation would not nearly have changed the outcome of the game. But hey, it was Team USA. It was an exhibition. What if this had been the NCAA championship series or some kind of elimination game?
Last year my team found themselves needing to walk a batter intentionally. The father of the pitcher, one of my assistant coaches, told his daughter to walk her. The 12 year old pitcher looked back at her dad as if to say, "what the heck are you talking about?" We had never gone over what an intentional walk is, let alone practiced it. We'd never seen another team issue one. I dare say the entire concept was foreign to every kid on that field.
So the father explained what he wanted the girls to do. He told his daughter to throw four balls. he told the catcher to stand up, reach out and make sure to catch every pitch. The two girls continued to stare at him as if his head were rolling around on the ground.
I sat there on my bucket feeling like I was about to be eaten by a grizzly bear. I coupled my fingers, placed them on the back of my neck to protect against claws, curled my body into the fetal position, closed my eyes, and began repeating the Lord's Prayer silently in my head.
The first pitch in this "intentional walk" was thrown for a strike, right down the middle. Our umpire was paying attention and bellowed STRIKE. Several coaches turned away so as not to see the rest of this disaster-in-the-making. One laughed nervously then hung his head to stare at a colony of ants. I gripped my neck more tightly, sped up my prayer, and began rocking uncontrollably on my bucket. The father nearly collapsed. He exhaled more air than I thought his lungs could hold, gathered himself, called timeout and went out to the mound.
I don't know what the father told the girls but I think it was something along the lines of "forget what I just told you. Now what I want you to do is just throw an ordinary pitch but it has to be outside. I want you to keep throwing outside until this girl walks, OK?" And he probably told the catcher just to set up for a normal outside pitch. Somehow we got through that experience. The girl was "successfully" walked.
We did not end up winning the game but we all learned a pretty important lesson. You are in serious trouble when you tell a couple kids to issue an intentional walk and their reply is, "OK. We can do that. So what's an intentional walk?"
Issuing an intentional walk is only an easy task if everyone understands what is going on and knows how to execute it. Trying this without ever discussing it in practice or at a scrimmage, without ever walking through it, is inadvisable. Every coach who anticipates his team having the slightest chance of ever playing in an important close game ought to take a look at the difficulty in issuing an intentional pass. The coach ought to explain the objective and required steps to his pitchers, catchers, and everybody else for that matter. Then the team ought to give it a go in practice.
There are some considerations which should be addressed when you go over this. First, and most importantly, the pitch has to be a legal pitch. That is, the pitcher must stand with both feet on the pitcher's plate (or whatever is required under the rules by which you play). The catcher must be within the catcher's box. Everything regarding what constitutes a legal pitch must be followed.
Generally, the catcher can step outside the catcher's box once the pitch is released just like on any other pitch. As an aside, many rulebooks provide that the pitcher cannot intentionally drop, roll, or bounce the ball along the ground in order to prevent the batter from hitting it. She has to throw it just like any other pitch.
If the pitcher fails to make a legal pitch, the plate umpire should and probably will call it illegal, award a ball to the batter, and advance any baserunners to the next base. That kind of, sort of defeats the purpose for issuing the intentional walk and that's why we're spending so much time now going over it.
So the pitch must be legal. You want it to be a ball. You want your catcher to catch it cleanly. And you want a clean throw back to the pitcher. Repeat three times! That's the recipe.
The catcher, as I said, needs to position herself in the catcher's box. There is no prohibition against her standing as opposed to squatting. I suggest standing in a ready position with one hand extended to the target zone. If there is a righty batter, extend the right hand out beyond the strike zone and hold that position until the ball is released. The pitcher may, even if she has practiced this, throw a bad ball which is in the dirt or very high. The catcher muct be ready to deal with that. So she shouldn't "just stand there." She needs to assume an athletic stance.
When you practice this, I would suggest picking a pitch which the pitcher has a lot of control over. If you're dealing with young kids, that may not be the fastball but in most cases it is. You want to encourage the pitcher to throw a normal fastball but since you don't need a hard one, encourage her to throw very relaxed without a full stride and little real effort. I say this with some hesitation because to the extent that you alter anything normal about your pitcher's delivery, you increase the chance that she'll throw a really bad ball which gets by the catcher and then allows the runners to advance. This is probably the single most important reason to go over this in practice. The pitcher must be comfortable with what she is throwing.
Another consideration is you don't want your pitcher to get out of her normal rhythm. You know your pitchers better than I do but for some reason, many windmill pitchers can lose their release point or otherwise get out of sorts after doing anything other than trying to throw strikes on the corners. You have to be able to read a kid and know that if she loads the bases with an intentional walk, she is going to be able to survive the experience intact.
Once you have executed one deliberate ball successfully, the catcher needs to A) check the lead runner and B) return the ball to the pitcher successfully. Some aggressive teams, particularly at younger age levels, will look to catch the defense napping and run a delayed steal at this time. So don't forget to address that in your practice.
Your middle infielders need to make themselves available to retrieve any returned ball which might somehow get away from the pitcher. The SS should position herself about where she would be if the infield were pulled in to try to nail a runner from third on a grounder but pinched in towards the pitcher a little more. The second baseman ought to be behind the pitcher in order to catch any overthrows. The first baseman should be positioned opposite where the SS is. These fielders must be ultra-aware that a ball returned from the catcher could be missed and roll far enough away from the pitcher to allow the runner from third to advance. I'd go so far as to say your centerfielder should be positioned right on the edge of the outfield grass, but set off from where the second baseman is located ... just in case something bad happens. Your third baseman should also be aware of the possibility of the ball getting away but she should be back holding the runner between pitches in order to discourage the delayed steal. The left fielder must be in fair territory (or the pitch could be illegal) but it certainly doesn't hurt to have her closer to the infield just in case "anything happens." Remember, anything can and will happen in fastpitch. You never know when your catcher or pitcher might become demonically possessed and try to nail the runner at third. So your left fielder shouldn't be left out of the joke. Finally, if I may be so bold, I suggest encouraging your rightfielder - the only player without a real job to do - to engage in whatever sort of prayer, religious or non-religious, she uses in times of high stress.
That's about all I can tell you about issuing an intentional walk. It is an important part of the game which is possibly the most overlooked aspect. You need to explain it. You need to practice it. You need to execute it as effortlessly as any easy aspect of the game.
There's really no reason to get stressed out about this. If you don't ever practice it and then try to get your pitcher to execute one in a big game, just think of all the funny stories you'll have to tell your friends.
Follow-up:
It looks like I forgot to add one important fact to this discussion on intentional walks. Let's not forget one very specific way in which a softball field layout varies from a baseball diamond. Behind homeplate, the catchers box is far narrower in baseball (almost 4 feet wide) than it is in fastpitch (more than 8 feet). This means that the catcher, while setting a target for an intentional ball, can set up right behind the lefty batter's box when pitching to a righty (behind the righty box when pitching to a lefty). This should make it easier to execute an intentional walk.Labels: defense, game strategy, practice
 
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