I was fortunate enough to watch Yu Darvish pitch from the 5th inning on during his bid for a perfect game on April 2nd. It was awesome. He mixed his pitches perfectly, no pun intended! When I was in Japan during the 2006-07 seasons, he was a rookie over there dominating as a 20 year old.
My favorite part of Yu’s performance was watching him pitch solely from the stretch, even when there was no one on base. This is something I started doing 7 years into my career when I realized that I had more command of my pitches from that position. For me, this one little adjustment changed things for me. I was able to cut my walks more than in half and definitely had better command of the zone, in and out. If you check out my career stats you can see the difference from the first to second half of my career in the walk column.
As for Yu, he pitches from both the windup and stretch, but I can almost guarantee that when he was warming up in the bullpen before the game, he noticed that he was better in the stretch. In this game, especially at the MLB level, there is no time to try to figure things out. You have to be able to make an adjustment from one pitch to the next. Obviously, that was the adjustment Yu made before the game even started.
The point of this post is that as a pitcher, the most important thing is for you to be able to throw strikes. If it means you being a starting pitcher throwing from the stretch, then do it. It is you job to do whatever it takes to throw strikes. Do what it takes and find a way!!
Founder of Baseball Dudes. Blessed with three beautiful children and an amazing wife. Baseball is my life, after my family, and I love sharing what I have learned from it. Thanks for taking the time to view what we offer here at Baseball Dudes.
