Johnny Reina

Travis Bazzana says the fear of striking out actually makes you strike out more “I feel like I always had, deep down, confidence and belief in myself. But freshman year, I definitely rode some waves where my confidence would dip a little bit. I’d still be confident, but my approach would drastically change, my plan at the plate, on defense, my mental state. My confidence would dip, but it was like the confidence dip would throw off where my thoughts were at as a whole.” “Freshman year was up and down. I’d ride waves where I’d punch out the first at-bat of the game, and then I’d be worried about getting to two strikes later in the game because I didn’t want to punch again. It was that fear of striking out. And you obviously end up striking out more, at least I thought I did, because I ended up swinging at all these one-strike pitches because I’m like, ‘I just got to swing.’ They throw something in the dirt and I’m like, ‘I got to hit it,’ and I’d play foul it off or whatever it was.” “So I think being worried about striking out just threw me off in little bits freshman year because I had such high expectations for myself. I always do. But once the older guys kind of stepped up and showed what they could do and I was struggling, I was like, ‘Damn, I just kind of lost some confidence,’ and rode it up and down.” “The biggest change, once I learned where I was weak freshman year, my biggest weaknesses, and I worked on them, I felt like I’d made the adjustments I needed swing-wise. Then I talked to all the people close to me about what the approach adjustments were going to be and where I was making myself struggle, where I was getting myself out offensively freshman year.” “I was chasing heavily in hitter’s counts. I’d get 2-0, 3-1, and I would swing at things that I would never swing at, out of the zone, because I’m thinking to myself before that pitch when I’m struggling, ‘Now’s my chance to hit the double, hit the home run. I have to take advantage of this fastball right here. I have to.’ And then I’d swing at something terrible because I was trying to do too much versus just being on time.” “The other part of it was I’d get to one strike and I’d also swing at a very high clip and maybe be way too contact-oriented with one strike versus getting a pitch to drive and actually do damage because I was trying not to get to two strikes.” “I talked to the people I needed to, figured out a more clean, consistent approach in the box, and I had a clear, consistent, confident plan most of the time when I went to the plate. That was what propelled me as much as the swing stuff propelled me.” “I was this much better freshman to sophomore year as a talented player, but my mental game, my consistency, my ability to consistently go out and perform because of where I was at here and my routines and everything, I got that much better at that.” “So my numbers were exponentially better as a player, but really it was just a combination of two things. It wasn’t just the physical. Everything just kind of clicked together.”