Dr. Skip’s Note
You know what the hardest pitch to throw isn't?
It's not the slider in a full count. It's not the fastball when you're protecting a lead in the ninth.
It's the first pitch of the next season after the year that broke you.
Sandy Alcantara had Tommy John surgery in October 2023. He came back in 2025. He posted a 5.36 ERA. The stuff was there. The results weren't. For a guy who won the NL Cy Young in 2022, one of the best pitching seasons of the past decade, that kind of year can hollow you out.
Then April 1, 2026. No walks. Seven strikeouts. 93 pitches. A complete-game shutout. What they call a Maddux, named after a pitcher who understood that domination isn't about throwing harder, it's about knowing exactly where the ball needs to go and trusting yourself enough to put it there.
That performance didn't come from the arm. It came from a decision Alcantara made before he ever took the mound: this year is different. This year, I compete.
That's the mental performance story of this week.
THE FRAMEWORK
THE SETUP
After a rough season or a bad stretch, the mind defaults to replaying what went wrong. You show up to your next practice or game still pitching last year's starts. That's not preparation. That's punishment. You can't build on a season you're still living in. Athletes carry forward the weight of old at-bats, old ERAs, old failures, and then wonder why they can't get loose. The past doesn't care about your next game. But your brain brings it anyway, unless you give it a reason to let go.
THE ROUTINE
Step 1: Write down what happened in one sentence. No story. No explanation. Just the facts. Example: "Last season I went 11-12 with a 5.36 ERA."
Step 2: Write what you're committing to this season. One specific action. Example: "This year I attack counts early and trust my sinker."
Step 3: Flip the card over. Literally turn it face-down on the table. That's the close. Use this before your first bullpen session. Use it before your first at-bat in practice. The ritual signals to your brain that the chapter is done. Simple is the point.
WHAT I’M SEEING
Konnor Griffin, 19 years old, debuted for the Pittsburgh Pirates in their home opener on April 3. He sat on a 1-2 curveball in his first big league at-bat and drove it 105.8 mph into the left-center gap for an RBI double. He's the first teenager to suit up for Pittsburgh since 1998. He came in with the biggest label in the minor leagues and didn't play like someone trying to prove it. He played like someone who already knew.
Sandy Alcantara threw the first complete game of the 2026 MLB season on April 1. 93 pitches. No walks. The first Maddux of the year. Full breakdown in the Deep Dive below, but the one line that says everything: "Many negative things happened last year but that didn't hold me back trying to be better." Read the deep dive.
College softball programs are now building mental performance infrastructure the way strength programs used to be built. Business of Ball ran a piece this week on how top programs treat mental skills training as daily work, not a pre-game talk. 44% of women's sports athletes in the NCAA report feeling mentally exhausted. The programs winning long-term are the ones taking that number seriously.
THE DEEP DIVE
PSandy Alcantara won the NL Cy Young Award in 2022. That season he threw 228.2 innings. He completed six games. He was the best pitcher in the sport. Then his elbow blew out.
Tommy John surgery in October 2023. He missed all of 2024. Eighteen months of rehabbing an arm that had just done something historic.
He came back in 2025. Opened on a high note, four no-hit innings, 99 mph in spring. Everyone expected the full return. It didn't happen. He went 11-12. The ERA was 5.36. There were bad starts, inconsistency, a pitcher who clearly had the stuff but couldn't put it all together.
After a Cy Young, after a full year away from the game, that's not just a performance problem. That's a mental performance problem.
Here's what I think happened. Alcantara came back in 2025 trying to become the 2022 version of himself. That's the trap. After a major injury, you can spend an entire season comparing your current self to who you used to be. Every bad outing confirms the gap. Every good outing feels like temporary relief. You're not pitching. You're auditing.
The mental shift that needs to happen is one most athletes resist because it feels like giving something up. You have to stop using your best season as the standard. That version of you existed in those conditions. You live in these ones.
What changed for 2026? He said it himself. He changed his mentality. He stopped trying to recreate 2022. He decided to compete from where he is, right now, in April of this year.
Two starts in, he has 15 scoreless innings. The first Maddux of the season. No walks. Seven strikeouts. Not overpowering hitters. Outthinking them. Being exactly who he is at this moment.
The 2022 version of Sandy Alcantara is done. The 2026 version already showed up.
That's the real comeback. Not back to who you were. Forward into who you are now.
Every athlete reading this has a version of this story. A season that didn't go right. A year you're still comparing yourself to. A standard from before the thing that changed you.
The question isn't whether you can get back to that. The question is whether you're willing to compete with what you have today.
Alcantara answered it
🏆 Player of the Week
Kylee Edwards
Kylee Edwards; Shortstop; LSU Softball
On April 3, Edwards hit for the cycle against Missouri. First cycle in 46 years of LSU softball history. Home run, single, double, triple. In that order.
Here's the thing about a cycle: after the home run, you still have three more at-bats to not overthink it. Most hitters start chasing after the second hit. "I just need a triple." That thought changes your swing before the pitch even comes.
Edwards treated each at-bat like it was the only one. The result was historic. The process was just softball.
That's presence. And it's rarer than the cycle.
FROM THE FIELD
Sandy Alcantara Post-Game Interview: Maddux Shutout -- Watch him talk about the game. The calm in his voice is the whole lesson. Watch how he describes his approach, not his results.
Mental Performance Infrastructure in College Softball -- Business of Ball breaks down how elite college softball programs are treating mental skills training as daily infrastructure, not a one-time team meeting. If you coach, this is twenty minutes that changes how you build your program.
Finding Mastery Podcast -- Dr. Michael Gervais has been doing this longer than most of us have been in the game. If you're serious about understanding the mental side of performance, start anywhere in his archive. His episodes on competitive mindset are the ones to find first.
"You don't rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems."
Build the system. This week.
GO ONE MORE REP
Go into your next practice with one job: compete like there's nothing to prove.
Not because the pressure isn't real. Because the work you've already done is more real than the pressure.
Show up. Do the work.
Till next time,