If you or anybody you know is struggling with issues of a sporting nature, I would suggest speaking with Mike Pelfrey. After suffering from "the yips" and consequently balking the ball park on Sunday night, Pelfrey sought the aid of a sports psychologist. This man must be some sort of witch doctor (extreme kudos to anyone who gets the title of this post). After one trip to the doc, Pelfrey goes out and pitches his best outing of the year last night at Fenway. Pelfrey pitched seven strong innings, giving up only two runs. After looking completely lost and out of control on Sunday night in San Francisco, Big Pelf was more in control than he had been at any point this season. It will be interesting to see if this continues into his next few starts, or if the success was coincidental. But maybe the Mets should put that doctor on payroll. He obviously knows what he's doing.
Make no mistake- I am not making light of Pelfrey's trip to a sports psychologist. I support it whole heartily. As someone who understands the benefit of talking out your problems to a non-biased party as a way of therapy, I think more players should consult the use of a sports psychologist. I can't imagine that feelings of inadequacy and confusion are uncommon in professional athletes. Think about it, these guys spend their entire lives trying to "make it". Once they have achieved that goal, sometimes its hard to deal with failure- especially inexplicable failure. What happened to Pelfry last Sunday night is known as the "yips". This refers to players randomly forgetting how to do simple tasks, such as throwing to the catcher (remember Rick Ankiel in the 2000 NLCS?). In Pelfrey's case, it was forgetting how to approach the plate without balking. However, this has been an ongoing problem for Pelfrey. He set a record for balks when he pitched for Wichita State in college.
-I was not the biggest fan of instant replay in baseball when it was instituted last summer, but last night's game did a lot to show me that it's a necessary commodity. The Mets could have easily lost last nights game on a botched home run call. I know, I know, suddenly I'm all for instant replay the minute it helps my team, but I'm starting to move to the side of getting the call right no matter what the costs....and yet another clutch hit by Omir Santos.
- Jordan Lauterbach
photo- nydailynews.com
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