Simple Game of Catch — Brandon Crawford

When you’re struggling for wins as much as we have so far this season, you go back to the basics. One of the basics is your pregame routine. No matter what happened in the game the night before, your pregame routine grounds you. It’s like wiping everything else away and pushing the reset button.

Part of my routine is playing catch with Belt. Every position player has a catch partner. Belt’s been mine for the past five seasons. There are two sessions of catch: before batting practice and just before the game begins. Our routine for each is a bit different from everyone else’s.

Before batting practice, after we get our arms loose, we throw pitches to each other. (Belt and I are probably catching partners because nobody else wants any part of catching our pitches.) I have a larger repertoire — fastball, cutter, curveball and change-up — but Belt’s two best pitches are better than mine. He has a two-seamer that runs in on a lefty (like me), and he hides it well. I wouldn’t want to face him in a game. He also has a little cutter-slider that runs in the opposite direction.

If called upon, could I take the mound in a game? Oh, yeah. I think we both could.

For the second round of catch, right before the game, Belt and I have our own little game. I stand on the outfield foul line. He stands about 110, 120 feet away in the outfield. As we throw back and forth, Belt gradually walks toward me. I work on transferring the ball as quickly as I can and throwing it from a lower angle, as if I’m turning a double play. Belt’s also snapping the ball back quickly.

As he gets closer and closer, we keep throwing at the same velocity. The goal is to get the other person to drop the ball, which means the game is over. We’ve gotten pretty good at tricking each other, seeming to throw it one direction but firing it in another. If no one drops the ball, we keep throwing until we’re close enough to just place the ball into the other’s glove.

It’s a simple exercise, but I think it accomplishes a couple things. It puts you in a calm, comfortable mindset because you’re doing the same thing day in and day out. And it kind of keeps you connected, as Major Leaguer, to the very first thing you ever learned in baseball: how to play catch. In the biggest stadiums, in front of the loudest crowds, against the world’s best players, baseball is still baseball. Throwing and catching.

OK, and hitting and fielding. They’re part of my routine, too. Actually they’re the most important part of my routine. It’s almost like a reset: Whatever happened the night before, all right, that’s done, it’s a new day and I’m going to be ready.

Every day, I’ll take anywhere from 10 to 25 ground balls that I throw to first base. Then another 10 or 15 that I throw to second. I practice as if it’s a game. It keeps my footwork sharp, which a big part of playing shortstop. But then I’ll add a little trick play to keep it fun, just to see what I can do out there with a certain ground ball.

In the batting cage, I go through the same sequence every day: opposite field, hit-and-run, runner on second and nobody out (hit to the right side), runner on third and fewer than two outs (first with the infield back, so I hit a ground ball, the second with the infield in so I get the ball in the air); hit the ball hard with backspin; drive the ball on 2–0, 3–1 and 3–0 counts.

Some people might get bored with routines. But every day when Belt and I play catch — I wonder how many throws we’ve made to each over five seasons? — we always end up having a few laughs. And we’re ready to go.