October 12, 2007
A Little Selectivity
Garrett Atkins discusses how he turned around his performance against Brandon Webb:
The key for Atkins was getting ahead in the count. He did not get into the difficult spot of having to swing at one of Webb's darting pitches.
In the second inning, Atkins grounded a 2-1 sinker through the left side of the infield for a single that moved Todd Helton to second. A walk to Hawpe loaded the bases, and the Rockies tied the score 1-1 on Troy Tulowitzki's double-play grounder.
"You don't want to get behind against him because you don't want to have to think about his off-speed stuff, too," Atkins said. "At least if you know the sinker is coming, you've got some kind of chance."
Atkins' typified the Rockies' approach against Webb. The hitters were comfortable going into deep counts against him. That ran up Webb's pitch count. He threw 23 pitches in the second, a workload that might have contributed to his poor showing in the third.
Of course, it helped that Webb missed the strike zone early in counts. But it does demonstrate how successful hitters can be if they force a pitcher to throw strikes.
Posted by David Pinto at
08:30 AM
|
Players
|
TrackBack (0)