Baseball Hacks

Follow Pitches During a Game

Baseball can be boring unless you understand what pitch is being thrown, and why.

People who don’t watch baseball all the time think it’s a boring game. They don’t think much happens; every minute or so, the pitcher throws a ball and the batter swings, and that’s it. Over time, fans realize that a lot is going on; there is a lot of strategy involved in pitching to each batter. This hack helps you follow this battle—the subtlest and most elegant part of the game.

In addition to making the game a lot more interesting, understanding and following pitching strategies raises a number of interesting questions to ponder as you watch. Is the pitcher throwing the ball where he should, or is he throwing it at the wrong spot? Is he having trouble with a certain pitch? Does it seem like the other team always knows a certain pitch is coming? Finally, watching the pitcher and catcher can also tell you about who is making the decisions. Usually, the catcher selects the pitches, but there are exceptions. You can learn a lot by watching.

Following the Pitching Strategy

The pitcher’s primary goal is to try to fool the hitter into swinging in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are a lot of ways to do this. Sometimes the pitcher wants to throw strikes that look like balls (so the batter doesn’t swing at a called strike) or balls that look like strikes (so the batter swings at the ball and misses). Other times, the pitcher wants to throw the ball where the batter can’t ...