Astros reliever James uses mental training to succeed

HOUSTON (AP) — Josh James slowly walks slightly off the mound, turns around and fixes his gaze on the foul pole in right field.

A few seconds pass before the hard-throwing Houston Astros reliever returns to the rubber and delivers his next pitch.

It's a scene James repeats again and again, often when he gets behind in the count. But the 26-year-old right-hander also relies on the routine in times he needs to gather himself to finish off a batter with a strikeout.

The tactic is something James learned from working with Dr. Jesse Michel, a sports psychologist who since 2017 has been the mental skills coordinator for the Astros.

James is in his first full season in the majors after making his debut in 2018. The 34th-round pick had felt something was missing when he toiled in the minors before meeting Michel during spring training in 2017.

"If it wasn't for him I think I'd still have gotten here, but I don't know if I'd be able to be as good as I am or have the ceiling that I can have without him helping me," James said this week as Houston prepared to play Washington in the World Series. "I owe a lot to him."

After that first interaction in a group setting, James began meeting privately with Michel. Those sessions were simply to let them get to know each other and build a mutual trust before they began working on things James could use in games.

But this was all new to him. Working on his mind the way he'd always worked on his body as an athlete wasn't something that came easily for James.

"At first it was still really difficult to actually put into use," he said. "But he would always check on me."

Slowly the lessons he was learning started to feel natural and James began to see results. By the next spring, he was all in.

And when Michel showed James and a group of...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Astros-reliever-James-uses-mental-training-to-14555342.php