Baseball and Poker

This weekend I enjoyed watching my beloved Braves finally take a home series. One of the broacasters, Don Sutton, made a comment that started me thinking of some parrallels with Hold'em. After a play that didn't go so well, he made the distinction about letting the play occur versus forcing a play to occur. I think maybe that has been one of my problems. When I start to feel desparate, I don't show enough patience or when I'm ahead, I overplay a winning hand and don't take advantage of the possibility of winning more of my oponents chips.

The pitching action of the game reminded me the most of the importance of mixing up your game. If you throw nothing but fast ball strikes, the're gonna go yard on you. Pitches that are truly in the strike zone are good locations for batters to hit. Its the speed, movement, or location on the corners that get them to wiff. You've got to get your opponents to chase balls or hit your pitches and make mistakes that you can take advantage of with subsequent pitches. Not unlike betting the flop, turn, and river. This is nothing real deep or earth shattering, but it just came to mind as I am watching a batter swing at a "terrible" looking pitch. As you're watching him, you wonder why did he swing at that? Then you realize that the pitch initially looked like something else and by the time he swung, it was too late to change. Why did it look like that? Because the previous pitch or two was the setup and when the batter was behind in the count, the pitcher was able to take advantage of this weakness without having to throw a perfect strike. You can also see the other side this during the second time through the batting order. Now the batters have seen more pitches and it becomes easier for them to recognize what position they are in with each pitch. This makes it important for the pitcher to be able to vary his delivery. This brings me back to the importance of changing up your game within the game in order to be successful. I'm not saying I can do it yet, I just know it needs to be done.