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If Pedro has any kind of sack, he would be inspired to shove it down everyone's throat with 9 innings of shut out ball. Unfortunately, sometimes no matter how hard you want something, guys can get hits off you. It probably did provide a little bit more juice on his fastball. That whole comment was so surprising because I always thought of him as not backing down to anybody.
I don't think the chanting gets in his head, I think just the fact that the Yankees beat him again and again enough for him to have doubts in his head. Once a professional athlete gets doubt in their head, they start to lose their effectiveness. Being a dominant pitcher is heavily reliant upon confidence, even arrogance. It's like "here's my fastball, try to catch up with, you don't have a chance."
See Chuck Knoblauch or Rick Ankiel for extreme examples of mental paranoia.
To me, a lot of Pedro's comments lately show traces of doubt. Even his comments about that he is happy to know that this attention beats not having 50 cents to take the bus sitting under a mango tree 15 years ago. Shouldn't he say something more like what Schilling said about shutting everybody up?
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