2006. We're playing Xavier. MLB scouts everywhere.

It felt like I had the best stuff of my life that day. Locked in, painting both sides of the plate. Eight innings, one hit, 11 strikeouts. I was cruising.

Then, first batter of the ninth rips a triple. Next batter, a weak ground ball, knocks in the run. Game over. Walk-off. We lose 1-0.

When that game ended and Xavier walked it off, I knew I had to carry myself a certain way. Shoulders back, head up, no matter how gut-wrenching it felt. I gave that game everything I had. I executed exactly what I wanted to. The results just didn't go my way.

I knew something else: next time, it will be different. It probably wouldn't be my best game. I'd be the one fighting just to stay in it, uncomfortable on the mound, getting hit hard and my team would make every play behind me to bail me out.

Same effort. Same competitor. Different nights, different results. That's why it's a humbling game.

This is the part players, parents, and coaches all need to understand: in baseball, you can do everything right and still be out. You can do everything right and still lose. In basketball, if you shoot the ball perfectly, proper release, range, no one blocks you, it goes in. Every time.

Baseball doesn't work that way. You can square a ball up exactly how you wanted to and still make an out, because there are nine guys standing out there waiting to catch it. Sometimes, it feels like results are almost at random, and the game expects you to keep playing anyway.

Bases loaded, two outs, 3-2 count. A kid gets the pitch he wants and hits it hard. Line drive, right at the third baseman's glove. You’re out. He jogs back to the dugout, feeling like he failed.

Next inning, the next kid up gets jammed on a pitch he had no business putting in play. Fights it off. A weak roller finds the hole between first and second. Base hit. He's on first, helping his team start a rally.

Same game. Same pressure. One kid did everything right and made an out. The other got beat on the pitch but still ended up with a base hit.

If you're grading yourself or your kid on what the scoreboard says happened, please stop. Shift your focus and understand this game is hard and failure is a major part of it.

Kids who don't know this start believing the lie. A few hard outs and they think they're slumping, a cheap hit and they think they've figured it out. They start chasing results instead of trusting the process.

The ones who last are the ones who learn early: the scoreboard and the truth are two very different things.

If your kid hit the ball hard and made an out, tell them they had a "great at-bat", don’t be silent. If your kid got a cheap hit, that's not a night for extra praise. Match your response to the quality of the at-bat, not the box score.

Kids learn what to value by watching what we react to.

This game will lie to you constantly. It will reward bad swings and punish good ones. The only way to survive that and actually get better instead of just getting lucky or unlucky, is to stop grading the outcome and start grading the process.

That's not the easy way to watch this game. It's the only way that holds up over a full season.

Help me keep more kids in the game. If you found this helpful, please forward it to another parent or coach.

Thanks for being here. See you next week Inside the Dugout.

-Coach Steve-

Steve Holmes
Founder, Inside the Dugout
2006 MLB Draft | All-American | Youth Coach | Dad