Bannister is Rubbing off on Greinke

That in the cold weather certain guys looked uncomfortable at the plate and he used that to his advantage. Seems like he is learning from Bannister that context is important, and he needs to think about his approach, rather than just chucking it up there.

How awesome was it to see Greinke pitch last night? This it the Zack I have dreamt about since 2004. He threw first pitch strikes on just about every single hitter. He got a ton of ground balls. He had absolutely terrific command. He seemed to get stronger as the game went along, getting swinging strikeouts in the 8th and 9th, throwing 95 mph in the 9th. He had an easy complete game, relatively stress-free on his arm. He had a huge grin from ear to ear in his post game interview. I felt so great for the guy. It was simply awesome to watch. Watching this team have not only an effective, but a dominating pitching staff is so much fun to watch.

I really hope this early season trend keeps up for the two of them.

Bannister said in an interview the other day that a pitcher always has 3 really good starts, 3 really bad starts, and then the other 4 starts determine what kind of pitcher he is, whether he’s above or below average. I really hope that these past few games were the really bad starts…just think how good those good starts would be ;)

In my opinion, Bannister’s greatest skill is his pitch selection. He seems to always know what is the best pitch and pitch sequence to throw to a batter, so they are always off balance even when he’s throwing them a seemingly quite hittable pitch. I know his selections come from a great deal of research and studying the batters he’s facing. But I hope he can teach some of this to Greinke. If nothing else, perhaps he can give him some pointers about pitch sequences that work against particular players or types of hitters. And/or, I hope that when Greinke is facing the same team that Bannister faced the prior day, he watches the films of that start to see what kind of pitches and sequences worked against those hitters.

is someone asking the guys to what extent they’re working together on approach. For all the credit Leo Mazzone got in Atlanta, people forget that Smoltzie, Glavine, and Maddux (and Millwood, later) were pretty tight, and there’d be occasional references in articles to those guys feeding off one another—I think I need to expand this now. Some pitching staffs, the guys compete with one another vigorously, but don’t help each other out so much (negatively competitive). Other staffs, guys help each other out a ton, but don’t have a huge sense of competition amongst themselves (“we’re all just a team here”). Atlanta… those guys were trying to outdo one another every which way to Sunday, but at the same time they wanted that sense of accomplishment to mean something, so they helped each other out and pushed one another to be better every day. Even Maddux, who’s well-known for the attitude that he’s “going to take his pitching secrets to the grave”, opened up to his buddies; it’s just the press he’s not going to talk to about it.

My impression (which may well be totally incorrect) has always been that a pitching coach doesn’t have much impact on approach; they’re more in tune with keeping an eye on a pitcher’s mechanics and helping them make corrections there when necessary. I liken it to, say, my English professor in college. They teach you how to write, but how you apply that knowledge is all on you. I suspect the same is probably true of a pitching staff.