You play your surroundings. You pitch accordingly. Not that I drastically try to change my game plan based on the score or the team or stadium, but you have to take everything into consideration.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It's not just what you do on the pitch, it's what you do off the pitch.
Pitches are like pages of a book; they're so important. The chess game; how I set you up early, and how I'll do it differently later.
One game, one pitch can change everything for a hitter. The way I like to approach it is that every at-bat is its own unique opportunity to go out there and do something really good.
It's very important to go pitch-by-pitch and game-by-game and not getting too far ahead of myself. In the past, it was trying to make up for a bad game and thinking ahead and what do I have to do to fix this.
The best decisions are taken quickly and well. You can prepare yourself, have all aspects of the game thought through, but the one who shines on the pitch is the one with intuition.
You still have to pitch the same game, execute your pitches as best you can. If the shadows end up helping you out, then great, but you can't really worry about that stuff.
When I get onto the pitch, I block out everything around it, and I really focus on the pitch.
Bottom line is, you have to pitch. You want timely hits.
I've learned over the years that it doesn't matter where you pitch in the rotation. For me, preparation is everything.
I only know one way to pitch. I really do.