Strike one or ball one? Getting ahead in the count can make all the difference in the world.
According to a study of Division-I baseball, pitchers have an 80 percent chance of getting opposing hitters out when the first pitch of an at-bat is a strike, but only a 60 percent chance if the first pitch is a ball. And if a pitcher throws a first-pitch strike to a hitter, it will yield an out or a strike 93 percent of the time.
Northwestern pitching coach Tim Stoddard said his staff shoots for a first-pitch strike 65 or 70 percent of the time. Last weekend at the Bojangles Baseball Classic, Stoddard estimated the Wildcats converted strike one 40 percent of the time.
“The more the batter gets to see pitches, the better the hitter’s going to be in recognizing and doing things,” Stoddard said. “In the first game that really looked absolutely terrible (against George Mason), we threw 230 pitches. A normal game’s probably about 110-130, somewhere in there. So they basically got to see two games worth of pitches, because there were a lot of 2-2, 3-2 counts.”
Given their struggles in the opening tournament of the season, Stoddard’s staff went to work this week, hoping to improve the rate at which they get ahead of opposing batters at the Big Ten/Big East Challenge. It’ll be especially important Friday when NU takes on Connecticut, which has some of the Big East’s top hitting prospects, like sophomore outfielder George Springer and junior slugger Mike Olt, who combined for 24 home runs in 2009.
“I want these guys to play at this type of caliber because the more we get to experience that now, the more we’re going to be able to handle … all the people that Ohio State and Michigan and Minnesota bring to the table every week,” Stevens said. “And that’s what I’m excited about.”
One pitcher who will get that experience sooner than expected is sophomore right-hander Francis Brooke. While most of NU’s rotation struggled last weekend, Brooke pitched 4.2 hitless innings of relief by keying in on getting ahead in the count. Against George Mason, Brooke threw a first-pitch strike to eight of nine hitters, Stoddard said. As a result, Stevens said he shuffled his weekend rotation, slotting Brooke in a starting role.
“That’s the reward for (Brooke) going out there and doing the things that he did,” Stevens said.
Much like they stressed not falling behind in the count, the pitching staff also focused on not falling behind in the first three innings of games. The Cats fell behind by a combined score of 28-3 last weekend in the first three frames, what Stoddard described as a “disaster.”
“We shot ourselves in the foot in the first three innings of each ballgame,” Stevens said. “We had some other rough innings, but when you dig yourselves holes that we did, it makes it a little more difficult to play the rest of the way.”
Brooke will likely take junior ace Eric Jokisch’s spot in the rotation. Jokisch pitched only two innings of the first game against George Mason last weekend after feeling a pinch in his back early on in the first. The problem originally plagued Jokisch in the fall but has been recurring since.
“We thought we had it under control,” the 6-foot-3, 180-pound lefty said. “There’s apparently some imbalance in my back, and I think it was something that was going to happen sooner or later if I didn’t get things checked out, and I hadn’t.”
Though Jokisch’s injury is not serious, Stoddard said the junior probably won’t pitch this weekend. Instead, Jokisch will rehab the injury in hopes of being healthy by next weekend, and more importantly, for conference games down the line.
Although Jokisch won’t take on UConn, Rutgers or Seton Hall in St. Petersburg, Fla., he still plans to contribute from the dugout. And he won’t accept a repeat performance of last weekend.
“Our pitching better be better,” Jokisch said. “Or I’ll be on people.”
