When a batter walks up to the plate, all eyes are on him, and the pressure can be debilitating. As baseball players progress, however, they learn how to cope with these situations.

“Ideally the pressure of the situation doesn’t even factor into the equation because you practice over and over again the same motions, the same repetitive motions,” said sophomore player Erik Korsmo.   “Guys have their little quirks. I like to clean [the batter’s box], scrape it off, make sure it’s nice and flat…I do that before every pitch. That just gets your mind ready.”

Whitman baseball coach Casey Powell expressed similar sentiments.

“You have to focus on the situation, but you also have to let everything you have done in practice and past games help you relax in this situation,” he said.   “At the plate, I want to know what pitches the pitcher is throwing. . . for a strike, what is his best pitch. . . what will he throw if he is ahead in the count.”

Batters generally execute the same motions before every pitch. Factors such as the number of outs, runners on base or the score do not tend to alter their approach, even in close games.

“I would assume that everyone that has played baseball for a significant amount of time has dreamed of being in that situation, coming through with the game-winning hit.   The batter that tries to do too much in that situation is going to be the one that fails,” said Powell.

“Anytime you are going up to hit it’s all about confidence,” Korsmo emphasized. “Whenever you’re walking around the baseball field you have to have that air of ‘I’m the big dog, anything you throw at me I am going to hit.’ You have to almost be confident to a fault.”

When a batter first walks up to the plate in any situation, they start with a clean slate.   Korsmo said that when you come up to bat, you can look for the specific pitch that you want to hit and it is a lot easier to sit back and wait for that pitch. As strikes increase, the situation changes and the batter has to be ready to hit anything, which forces him to be prepared and to maintain a more focused mindset.

“Baseball is all about consistency and maintaining the same mentality over the long haul.   Sometimes you are going to smoke the ball hard and still get out five times in the game, but that’s just baseball,” said Korsmo.

“You can’t let the pressure get to you.   It is only as much pressure as you put on yourself.   Baseball is a game where you can fail 7 out of 10 times and be considered really good,” Powell said.

“I just try to clear my mind and focus on little things, usually like arm spots for the pitcher,” said Korsmo. “I focus on the little things to stay away from the big picture.”