Rambling On About My Glory Days: A Fan’s Guide to Hitting Major League Pitching

How to Hit Mark Buehrle

Wow! Was that something? As rare as a perfect game is (just 18 ever), to come from a pitcher who is not considered over-powering is amazing and lifts my spirits. Why does it lift my spirits? It seems like for a number of years now baseball people rely on the radar gun to decide how good pitchers are. It is important, and believe me an upper eighties fastball is still formidable, especially mixed in with good off-speed stuff, but reliance on just speed does not make a pitcher.

Mark Buehrle has one advantage, though, because he doesn’t have that overpowering fastball. When players know they are going to face a Randy Johnson or a Tim Lincecum, they get “jacked up” from the start of the game, knowing they have to be ready to catch up to that speedball. With Buehrle, I am assuming guys aren’t as fired up because they know he will not overpower them. He kind of lulls the other team to sleep by pitching quickly and boring teams with strike after strike. It is usually an 0 & 2 count before they are settled in to hit and it is the 5th inning before they know that the game has started.

When I played, Buehrle was the type of pitcher that we used to say would give you a comfortable 0-for-4 game. After making an out, hitters would come back to the dugout and mumble that “he has nothing” when asked by a teammate what the pitcher was throwing. Guys may have been doing that on the Rays during the game, but of course, in this game they all received a comfortable 0-for-3 instead. Be sure to cut out the box score in today’s paper; it will probably be a long time before the opportunity to see all 3’s and 0’s again.

Getting back to the original intent of the story on how to hit Mark Buehrle – I am sure many viewers at home are watching him pitch, thinking, “Why can’t major league hitters hit this guy?” Let me explain. For many years after retiring from pro baseball, I would tell people that the toughest pitch to hit was a good changeup. Obviously, it has to be a good one with great arm action. When a pitcher has perfected it like Buehrle has, you see what results often occur. To people who don’t know what a good changeup is like, think of an optical illusion. The ball seems to be going one speed but is actually going another, much slower. Guys with great changeups could call out that they were throwing it and it is still difficult to hit. Additionally, because of the good changeup, a pitcher’s fastball automatically appears so much faster than it is. That 88 mph fastball acts like a 95 mph after seeing the changeup.

So how do you hit Mark Buehrle? Because he never seems to throw the same pitch to the same location two pitches in a row, hitters should think opposites at all times. When it is a fastball count, hitters should look off-speed. Similarly, if he throws a pitch inside, they should look outside for the next one. Additionally, when a hitter is in doubt as to what to look for, they should expect changeup because that is his most devastating pitch, especially when he is on his game. Of course, the problem is still there because, as mentioned, when a pitcher has a great changeup it is still a difficult pitch to hit.

I know from experience that this is all easier said than done, especially when a pitcher can make the ball move on all pitches like Buerhle can. This is another aspect of pitching that the average fan may not understand. Great pitchers have what is called late movement on the ball, where the ball “moves” at the last second. Put these factors together and you may begin to understand why hitting Buehrle when he is on is so difficult. Put all of these factors together and you see why even the great hitters in the game are successful only 3 out of 10 at-bats.

A big thumbs up to Mark Buehrle for showing young players what pitching is all about.

Former major leaguer Jack Perconte is the author of The Making of a Hitter (http://jackperconte.com) and has a baseball instruction site that can be found at www.baseballcoachingtips.net. He has recently published his second book Raising an Athlete – How to Instill Confidence, Build Skills and Inspire a Love of Sport