iPhone App Review - OnScreen Pitch Count

On Screen Pitch Count is touted by its developers as “an app for anyone wanting to have the pulse of a baseball or softball game at his or her fingertips.”  I beg to differ.  This is an app for fanatics and is not really aimed at casual fans.  Most fans don’t fill out a scoresheet as they watch, nor do they track these kinds of pitching stats.

The point of this exercise is to review the app, not to project its possible success.  I tested the app while watching a Marlins vs. Braves game on Fox Sports, and it works exactly as advertised.  I was able to enter both starting pitchers and team names, and choose the number of innings, which brought me to the data entry screen.  This screen consists of no fewer than 20 buttons.  Many of these buttons are inactive until the action becomes possible (i.e. the strikeout button only became active after I had input three strikes).  During the course of the game, I was able to easily enter the pitching data without getting distracted from the game.  That’s a huge plus.

The fact that this app only focuses on pitching helps in this regard.  After three innings of data entry, I was able to review the performance of both pitchers by hitting the Review or Details buttons.  All of the functions work very well, including Undo, New Pitcher and Edit.  The Edit function is especially useful while watching a game on TV.  Often the broadcast comes back after the action has started so you might miss a pitch or two.  Edit allows you to enter the data after the fact if necessary.The sounds are basic and are only meant to alert you to 3rd strike, inning over and that sort of thing.

One glaring omission is the inability to email the pitch data.  If I’m going to track my son or daughter or my favorite pitcher for 7-9 innings and pay this kind of attention, I’d like to be able to keep the data someplace and track it over the long term.  The only option in the current version is to review the data in the app, and that’s unsatisfactory.  Another feature that is lacking is the ability to input and track velocity.  At most major league parks, the radar results are available, and it would be pretty cool to be able to track this over the course of a game or by inning.  I realize the results are totaled and not tracked by individual pitch, but it would be a nice feature, even as a per inning average.

If you find yourself wanting to keep track of every pitch, every kind of strike and almost every other pitching stat, then this app is for you.  If you coach or have a son or daughter who pitches, this would be a great app.  If you are fanatical about pitching stats, this is a great app for you.  For the rest of us, this app is burdensome and doesn’t add much to the general viewing experience.

Overall impression

★★★★★★☆☆☆☆

Value for your money

★★★★★★★☆☆☆

Category: Sports
Type: Pitching Analysis
Cost: 2.99
Rating: 4+

Current iTunes Reviews: n/a

Description:

OnScreen Pitch Count from OnScreen Science, Inc. is an app for anyone wanting to have the pulse of a baseball or softball game at his or her fingertips. Pitching is the key to the game, and with OnScreen Pitch Count you’ll have data that even the tv analysts don’t. You’ll know how many pitches each pitcher in the game has thrown and exactly what the net results of those pitches have been.

Whether you’re watching your favorite team play, listening to a game on the radio, sitting in the stands at your child’s Little League game, or coaching a game in which extra pitching data could help you make the right decision, you’ll find OnScreen Pitch Count enhances your enjoyment of the game as it increases your understanding of it.

Be sure to check out the 6-minute video at <http:://nondummies.com/pitchvideo.html> to see OnScreen Pitch Count in action.

OnScreen Pitch Count allows you to keep the running totals of

• kinds of strikes:
foul, swinging, called, ball put in play
• third strikes:
swinging, called
• balls
• total pitches
• batters faced
• outs recorded
• strikeouts
• base runners
• how many runners reached base by:
walks, hits, errors, hit by pitch, other
• runs allowed

just by tapping easily learned buttons on the screen.

You may be surprised at how revealing just a glance at the distribution of strikes can be for a pitcher.

If your interest is in one particular pitcher, you can just follow that one. If you want a complete record of pitch results for every pitcher in the game on both teams, you can track them. There is no limit to the number of pitchers you can record in a game, and OnScreen Pitch Count properly charges runs to relief pitchers who allow base runners but leave the game before the runners score.

The main screen shows the name of the current pitcher, the inning, the game totals of balls and strikes for the pitcher, and the current situation (outs, number on base, and the ball/strike count on the hitter) in clearly demarcated areas above the bottom part of the screen, which is where the touch-screen buttons for recording pitch results are located.

A tap of the Details button brings into view all of the additional pitch result data mentioned above. A tap of the Review button brings into view a list of all pitchers for whom pitch results have been recorded in the game. Tap a name on the list to see that pitcher’s game totals.

Did you tap the Ball button, only to hear the umpire call the pitch a strike? No problem. Tap the Undo button to take the ball away. Tap the Strike button to correct the count. The results of up to two consecutive pitches can be undone. In case you’ve somehow lost track through a distraction, you can edit the count on the batter, outs in the inning, or number of base runners, though the undo feature should be used when possible.

What if you record a strikeout for the third out, only to see the catcher drop the ball and the runner reach base safely? Again, no problem. No need for the Undo button. Tap the button proper for batters reaching base other than by putting the ball in play; select the case for reaching base after a strikeout; and the out is then removed, while the strikeout remains tallied, and the number of base runners increases by one.

Feel free to make a phone call do anything else in between innings. When you return, OnScreen Pitch Count takes you right back to where you left off. After you’ve finished with a game, which can be as soon as the pitcher you’re interested in has finished, the results are automatically stored on your iPhone or iPod Touch for later review whenever you wish. If you don’t want to keep a game, delete it.

Increase your enjoyment of ball games by giving more attention to the details in a way that’s not burdensome. OnScreen Pitch Count is just the right medium between barebones pitch counters and pitching-coach-level