Thanks for clarifying it for me, too.  It makes throwing a dryer ball into a cushion in the living room make a little more sense.  Sort of…

My initial reactions were that no pitcher should ever vary from 56-73 – there's something wrong there; and that sometimes you have to get away from "paralysis by analysis" and just go cut it loose.  That's not very 3X, but I do it a lot with pitchers.  Focusing constantly on minute parts of the delivery – which I certainly do – has a tendency to slow a pitcher down and make him tentative.  That's when I find ways to get back to just throwing a baseball like a baseball player – not like a pitcher.  As I said – I do that a lot, and it is very beneficial.  (I think the ratio of what a coach should know about a pitcher and what the pitcher should actually work on is at least 10-1.)

Brent's take is a very important issue:    "Nic is learning that the more time he spends on the mound in pressure situations the more comfortable he will become."

How many times have you seen a young pitcher come into a game and just be lights out in his warm-ups – boom, boom, boom, right down the middle with gas.  And then as soon as a batter steps in, he loses 5 mph and all contact with the strike zone.  And I love Brent's answer.  It's why I have never agreed with those who say that pitchers shouldn't pitch at early ages.  I think the best way to learn to pitch is to pitch – at the earliest age they can.  They need to be protected and they need to be taught how to pitch properly – but they need to pitch.