Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Making Adjustments


White Sox GM Rick Hahn said this in today’s Tribune about Sox catcher Josh Phegley, that “it was his first exposure to the big leagues and obviously the league adjusted to him fairly quickly and he was unable to adjust.”  After a nice start, Phegley wound up hitting .206 with 4 homers and 22 rbi’s. He had real problems laying off of pitches that broke outside.

That was the first adjustment Clare had to make, sliders away.  I don’t know which was harder, the 50-year old pitcher trying to throw them or the 10-1/2 year old trying to hit them.  Talk about your shouting/scowling matches, but she learned.  I think.

The next adjustment was the rise ball; how my little high school freshman loved to go swinging after those.  By her junior year, she could consistently foul off rise balls, at which point pitchers pretty much stopped throwing them.

The one challenge in college has been the change up; you can almost hear the body parts crack as Clare tries to check her swing.  Her hitting coach, bless him, will spend close to an entire session throwing change ups.  So, now my daughter knows how to handle those pitches, too.
           There’s just one more adjustment to go, life after softball.  That one should be interesting for the two of us.

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