POKER AND PITCH COUNTS.

POKER AND PITCH COUNTS. Because the real advantage in the contest between batter and pitcher comes when there are two strikes or three balls, each at bat is a little contest between batter and pitcher, each trying to get to the favored position. Wade Boggs would give away the first pitch of an at bat by almost never swinging at the first pitch. He thought it was worth the slight loss of advantage of a first pitch strike to get an idea of what the pitcher was throwing. Tom Seaver would have pitching sequences worked out beforehand for critical at bats against good hitters, to the point of setting up what pitch he would throw on the 3 ball, 2 strike count. Carl Yasztremski would sometime take a bad swing at a pitch he liked early in a game so that the pitcher would throw him the same pitch later in the game with men on base.