Tough Day at the Office (Hitting is Contagious)

My kid pitched two innings on Friday night. He didn't have his best stuff, and he gave up some runs. There were some bloop singles, solid line drive singles, and a few errors. From a hitter's point of view, when you see your teammate have success at the plate, maybe it relaxes you a bit, and maybe it builds confidence that you can hit this pitcher too. From a pitcher's point of view, if you don't have your best stuff, you lose some confidence, take a little off your fastball, and worry too much about getting the ball over the plate. Suddenly a team puts together a string of hits in a row. We were behind 12-7 heading into the bottom of the 7th. There was some sloppy baseball on both sides. In ugly fashion, we came from behind to win 13-12. My kid said his arm was sore. He was frustrated. "Tough day at the office," I said, "this is how baseball goes." When he woke up Saturday morning, I asked, "You wanna know something funny about last night?" He said "I got the win." Exactly right. It was a rough outing, but he was the pitcher of record in the 7th inning when we won, so ended up with the win. Kid knows his baseball. 

When a kid is struggling on the mound, or at the plate, we can see a positive element of youth sports in that kids learn to deal with adversity. Coaches can instruct kids to change their pitching or swing mechanics, but ultimately it's the kid who has to figure it out. We can also see the kindness of teammates when they encourage their scuffling friend, e.g. by hollering "You got this!" or being supportive in other ways.