Well, yes and no. Of course the player has to fix himself. In the end, he's the only one who can. At the same time, a pitching coach's entire job is to help pitchers throw to their potential. Again using Wang as an example, why isn't Eiland working with him night and day to get his mechanics right? Yes, Wang has to do it, but Eiland's definitely not helping him in-game.
Well, what Eiland has said is that his bullpen sessions are great. It's only in-game where it falls apart... which indicates that it could be mental. That's a hell of a lot harder to coach out of someone. And in some ways, they've been doing the best they can by him, by just letting him go out and pitch and try to figure it out (in his head).
Hmm, now that you mention it, I hadn't noticed before, but yeah, he's not coming down on that locked knee anymore. But if you change a guy's mechanics, and he loses velocity, shouldn't you, as a pitching coach, look to tweak his motion in other ways to make up for it? As for not letting loose, isn't that also something the pitching coach/manager should be focusing on? If your starter isn't going to give you 100% of whatever is in his tank, once every five days, then there's a problem, and it's on the coaches to kick him in the ass.
It Is High.....it Is Far....................its A Fuckin Weppppppppppppppppppppppppppppa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yeah, I've seen the stories about good bullpen sessions. But a pitching coach should still be talking to his players during a game when they're "not right."
That was a BOMB from A-Rod. Christ. Well... there's only so much you can do. You can't necessarily "tweak" the motion to make up for something like that. It's not that 99-100mph was his default max, and so he should be able to hit that in any motion. It could be that the locked leg provided the pivot that allowed for 3-4mph more than he otherwise could have had. Again, there's only so much you can do. If he's still learning how to pace himself as a starter in the majors, that's one thing. If he's trying to leave something in the tank for the next inning... or if he's backing off a bit because he's having issues locating the ball... or whatever... I don't know. There are just as many situations where it could be on the pitcher as much as the pitching coach. That's not to say that it's not Eiland's responsibility to try to figure it out. And sometimes, coaches need to be fired even for not being able to figure out things that have no solution. But this might not be on Eiland.
You think he's not?! Look, like I said, there's only so much Eiland can do. I'm not saying he's blameless or anything, but I'm not sure there's much he can do in Wang's case, short of what they've been doing, trying to build his confidence.
I will never be convinced that Bruney can putch the 8th...why couldnt HUghes pitch the fuckin 8th???????????????
