Stop Blaming Mental Toughness for Every Bad Pitch!

Physical Mistakes vs. Mental Mistakes: There's a BIG Difference!

Not every mistake is a mental mistake. Coaches and parents sometimes confuse poor physical performance with a lack of mental toughness. And there's a pretty big difference! If we don’t diagnose the problem correctly, we can’t change it.

Physical mistakes are things like walking a batter, missing your spot, or overthrowing a throw to first (It happens to the best of us!).

Mental mistakes are things like not committing to a pitch, intentionally throwing slower because you're frustrated, not knowing how many outs there are, or letting your bad attitude take over.

When I played in college, mental mistakes were a BIG deal. If you weren't paying attention, weren't giving your best effort, or acted like you didn't want to be there, you were much more likely to find yourself sitting on the bench. Physical mistakes? Those were part of the game. If you were giving your best effort and simply didn't execute, we went back to practice and worked on it. That's what practice is for.

Just Because She CAN Throw Strikes Doesn't Mean She Always Will!

Let's say your daughter strikes out the first batter and then walks the next three. It's tempting to think, "Well, she obviously CAN throw strikes. She just lost her confidence."

Not so fast!

Just because a pitcher throws strikes to one batter doesn't mean she's physically capable of consistently throwing strikes to every batter. Pitching is hard! If throwing strikes were that easy, we'd all be pitching in the Olympics. So how do you know whether your daughter's struggles are physical or mental?

Look at the numbers

Let's say your daughter consistently throws 65% strikes in practice but only 40% in games. Now we have something worth investigating. Maybe nerves, pressure, or confidence are affecting her performance.

But if she's throwing 40% strikes in practice AND 40% in games, we probably shouldn't blame her mental toughness. She's performing pretty much exactly how she's been practicing. Of course, one bad inning doesn't tell us much. We need to track enough pitches and innings to see real patterns.

Parents, This Is Why We Need You at Lessons

This is one of the biggest reasons we ask parents to attend lessons and catch for their daughters. If you're not watching her practice, completing her worksheets with her, and helping track her performance, how do you really know what she's capable of?

You might think she's falling apart mentally during games when, in reality, she's performing right around her current skill level. And that's okay! That's why she's taking lessons. The more you understand what she can consistently do in practice, the better you'll be able to recognize when something changes during competition.

So, what do you do about physical mistakes versus mental mistakes? The answer to both is PRACTICE! For mental mistakes, check out my last blog for tips on improving your mental game. For physical mistakes, there's no magic trick (sorry). You need more reps, better mechanics, and consistent practice 3-5 times per week between lessons. You can't fix a physical problem just by telling yourself to be more confident, and you can't fix a mental mistake by throwing 100 more pitches. Figure out what's causing the problem, put in the work, and keep getting better. Good luck!