February 18, 2006
The Catcher-Pitcher Relationship
Jorge Posada and Randy Johnson are working on improving their roles as battery mates. I'm not sure I understand what Randy means here, however:
"I think it's important that you and the catcher communicate in between innings and know what is going well for you out there and what's not," Johnson said. "I think it's important that the catcher realizes that even if you think something is going well, and it really isn't, but you are convinced it is, that he still try to get you through the game. A lot of times in the first half (of last season) things weren't going well for me. I tried getting through it and it was a struggle at times."
It sounds to me that Randy is looking for positive feed back, and maybe Jorge was offering negative comments last year. Saying negative things in a positive way is often tough to do, but it's a good skill to develop.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:05 AM
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What he means is that the catcher needs to guide you to the "third way" when you don't agree. You think, for example, that your curveball is breaking well, the catcher needs to guide you to throwing the changeup instead when you both think that an offspeed pitch is called for. For more mortal pitchers, it's usually convincing them to go away from their fastball when their other 2-3 pitches aren't doing well and picking the right spots for mixing them in -- it doesn't take long for a lineup to figure out when a pitcher has nothing but his fastball working, so it's critical for a catcher to do this on days like that., which most of you will recognize when the starter gets rocked for 4-5 runs in the 4th or 5th inning.
