Rain Outs/Delays

Rain Delays and Keeping Players Sharp




Struggles of rain delays and rainouts can do huge amounts of damage to players who are use to playing a good amount of games in a short period of time. High School and College baseball teams are use to having a large amount of practice time to start the year, and then are forced into games and to adjust on the fly throughout the season to any problems which might be popping up.

Weather can throw a huge monkey wrench into those plans. Rain and bad weather can make it so those plans. Weather can make it so that you have large amount of down time between games. This can result in too much down time to fix problems. This can also lead to players who haven't faced game situations in a week or two. Players can also be forced to practice the basics for almost too much time.

Working on the basics in my opinion is not the problem of large layoffs for players. The biggest problem that I have seen with large layoffs is the timing, and problems which pop up due to not facing the pitchers in game situations. Batting practice can only simulate so much for a hitter. Several things which I have tried throughout the last two seasons to help with down time:

Simulated Games: Provide work for both batters and pitchers. This allows for pitchers to get some work in with game situations, and hitters to see live pitching. Downside to this is obviously if you have one coac
h or a small amount of coaches then you are more than likely forced into different situations where you have either. Pitchers need to throw strikes in order for this to be an effective practice strategy as well. This normally after pitchers have thrown their quota for the day normally if time remains I volunteer to throw to players.

Keeping pitchers sharp is even more difficult when looking at the big pitcher. Having built up pitchers arms to throw 60-70 pitches takes a lot of time over the entire spring. Now that we have officially gotten two straight weeks off, I can not justify throwing a pitcher for 60 pitches for the first time out back. Hitters I will be interested in seeing today as they work their way back into game shape. We had two simulated games over the break one intrasquad, and one with me throwing to them. I think that they have had an easier transition than pitchers.

Defensively I feel that over the last two weeks we have hit our stride when dealing with fielding. We have been strong and in my opinion we will continue to stay strong as we keep going on the season. Thanks for checking in if you want to follow along for the High School season, and Legion Season feel free to drop a line or comment!



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