The mental aspect of baseball pitching is probably the most important part of it. A great athlete has his mind and body working together in smooth, perfectly coordinated unison. Physical ability and technical skill are very important, of course, but the mental part of athletic performance is even more important. And when it comes to the skill of baseball pitching, you are engaging in one of the most mentally-oriented of all athletic performances.

You have to begin to develop the mental aspect of your baseball pitching in practice. You don't "save it for the game". When you are practicing, you must treat your techniques and mental processes exactly as you would if you were in the game. If you are "off" in practice, you must get yourself on. You cannot say to yourself, "It's alright, this is just practice". That's not the right attitude, not the right mind-set, for practice at all.

There are some things that you should be thinking to yourself in practice:

*I'll always practice throwing any pitch to the exact spot where my eyes see the center of my target.
*I will learn mastery of pinpoint control with every one of my pitches.
*I will develop excellent movement and speed variation with all of my pitches.
*I will develop variations in my delivery and pick-off moves to hold runners to bases and shut down the running game.
*I will develop a connection with my catcher so that we are thinking in very similar ways in games.

Another very important aspect of the pitching game is mental talk. How you talk to yourself very largely determines how successfully you pitch. You must choose to create a stream of consciousness built out of "power" words. These words are those that will start flowing through your mind when you think about yourself pitching, and they will heavily impact the way you pitch. For instance, if you want to develop a smoking fastball, you should say the word "fast" to yourself as you visualize throwing the fastball for a strike. Say your power words out loud if it helps, which it does for a great many pitchers. Visualizing your pitch doing exactly what you want it to do and hitting the catcher's mitt exactly where you want it to is also of paramount importance.



One terrible mistake that many pitchers and athletes in general make is to tell themselves that they are "tired". Even if you do feel tired, you must develop a mentally tough game so that your tiredness cannot overwhelm you during the game. You must not imagine yourself as "tired".



*When you feel tired you begin overcompensating by trying to "put extra mustard" on your pitches. This leads to a loss of control, and you walk hitters or you throw "juicy" pitches for them to smash for hits and home runs. Mentally tough pitchers remind themselves of their abilities and restrain themselves from overcompensating.



*When you are getting tired your concentration wanders. Mentally tough pitchers are self-aware and they make their minds come back to the game, the game, the game.



*The way to become mentally tough when you are tired is to practice when you are tired. Practicing pitching when tired builds discipline, self-control, and the ability to push yourself beyond your comfort zone.



What must you think about during games to make yourself as powerful and masterful a pitcher as you can be?



*I will throw as few pitches as I possibly can to get hitters out. If I do not strike out the hitter, I will make him hit one of the first pitches I throw to him, and make him hit it in a way or to a place that he does not want to hit it.

*I will get ahead in the pitch count, so that I can command the hitter.

*I will get the first hitter out in every inning.

*I will adjust to the situation as I need to so that I always get three outs before the other team scores.

*I will not allow the big inning.

*I will shut down the other team's running game.

Finally, as a pitcher, you are always studying. You are not only a player on the days when you will be pitching. This is especially true for starting pitchers. You should be studying every pitch that gets delivered to every hitter and seeing how that hitter reacts, whether you are in the game or on the bench. You must give yourself every edge to out-think the hitters you will face, because they, too, are doing all that they can to out-think you.

As the pitcher, you command the game. Be aware of it. Be mentally tough.