This situation and names are made up.

John is the number 2 hitter for his team.  John is a left handed hitter and he has an approach and he sticks with it.  John’s approach is to jump on the fast ball early in the count because he knows the pitcher wants to use it to get ahead of him.  John thinks about this at breakfast, while he brushes his teeth, and at night while he is laying in bed.  John has his approach and he sticks to it.

In today’s game John is facing a left handed pitcher and in his first at bat John see’s a first pitch curve ball and it lands in for a strike.  No big deal he wasn’t looking for that pitch.  Now John has worked the count to 2-2 and he has fouled off a few curve balls and the pitcher missed twice with his fastball.  With this information in hand, John takes a practice swing steps back into the box and crushes a curve ball in the gap.  He hit it like he knew it was coming…because he did, and not because Crash Davis behind the plate told him so, John studied the at bat and knew the pitcher threw his curve ball for strikes and could not locate his fastball so he had to throw the curve.  Now we are in the third inning and John is coming up again and instead of killing time playing games or talking about girls in the dugout John watched the pitcher.  He studied his pitch selection and tried to find any tendencies.  While watching the pitcher John realized three things, one the pitcher started every lefty off with a curve ball, two he could not consistently throw his fast ball for strikes and three he knew when the pitcher did throw it for strikes he could not throw it by him.

Armed with this info John walks slowly from the on deck circle thinking about his approach.  He thinks fastball right?  Wrong, John is looking for a curve ball.  John knows the pitcher has a loopy curve and he loves to get ahead in the count with it and his fastball just plain stinks.  So John throws the old approach out the window and takes a fastball down for ball one and crushes a 1-0 curve ball into the stands.

This also falls into making adjustments, but more then anything it is having an approach and being able to adjust your approach to certain situations when needed.  Also, believe in your approach.

This story is true and I am embarrassed by it.  I was playing in Joliet for the Joliet Jackhammers.  We were playing Kansas City and I noticed in the first game every time the pitcher was in a 2-0 count he threw a change up.  This did not change from pitcher to pitcher it was consistent, meaning the team had this philosophy and it is one I picked up on and could now exploit if I was in this situation.  Sure enough in my second at bat I am ahead 2-0 and I step out and say here it comes, I step back in and sure enough here it comes a big fat change up that isn’t doing much and i get my foot down and I take it.  Strike 1 right down the middle.  I had an approach everything went my way and I didn’t believe in it enough to pull the trigger.  Lesson learned the hard way next pitch curve ball low, I swing and ground out.

Have an approach, but if you pick up on something and you know it will happen, change that approach for your next at bat.  It is called making adjustments and the ability to do so will help you survive in this game.