The Milwaukee Brewers just swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Championship Series, and Jake Bauers was named MVP. After Game 4, he said, “I chose to be confident. I chose to believe in myself.” A game earlier, he had reflected, “I stopped caring about results. I started caring about competing.”
When Bauers joined FOX’s postgame panel—Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Derek Jeter, and host Kevin Burkhardt—they discussed his, and the Brewers’, confidence and belief. They described that confidence as something you could feel in the clubhouse or see in the dugout. Despite being swept by the Dodgers the year before, the Brewers gave the impression that they expected to win this series all along.
And then the commentators went searching for explanations.
We often describe confidence intuitively as a feeling, as a presence we recognize in ourselves and others. Yet we somehow forget this when we describe how we find it or come to feel it. We put so much emphasis on mindset. On intention. On making a choice or decision. On remembering who we are and what we’ve done before. Bauers’ own words echo that emphasis. And to be fair, these approaches can all be helpful. As can accepting that we will sometimes strike out, staying with the process, and letting go of the outcome. But if deciding to remain in the moment and be confident were all it took, wouldn’t we all do it?
Haven’t we all been told at some point, “Just relax. Let it come to you. Trust yourself. Remember what you’re capable of. Go out there and have fun”?
I imagine Shohei Ohtani, the Dodgers’ best player and arguably the greatest player in baseball, told himself, and heard from his coaching staff, much the same. Yet, while dealing with knee and biceps injuries, he hit only .192 in the postseason, going 5-for-26 with 10 strikeouts. Knowing what he is capable of cannot, by itself, make such high performance available on demand, especially when injured. Yet we like to think we can just focus more and try harder, and our body will respond accordingly.
In contrast, consider what Bauers was doing at the plate. In consecutive games, he worked a 12-pitch walk against Yoshinobu Yamamoto and hit a home run on the 11th pitch against Blake Snell. David Ortiz, the Hall of Famer and three-time World Series champion, described those two at-bats as among the most impressive he had ever seen.
Making contact with a baseball roughly 2.9 inches across traveling at 100 mph takes extraordinary timing and precision: Picking up information from the pitcher’s delivery. Mapping the ball’s flight. Anticipating speed and path of motion. Adjusting to different pitches while remaining ready for the one you want to hit. This depends on coordinated eye, head, and body movements, including picking up on the spin of the ball and looking ahead toward the ball’s anticipated path. And all of this happens within a fraction of a second.
Much of what allows a hitter to do all of this in the blink of an eye unfolds without consciously directing each movement. In fact, in research using simulated batting, asking expert hitters to attend closely to their swing mechanics increased errors and movement variability. A conscious intention can guide an approach. But executing that approach in real time involves capacities that extend beyond what we can consciously coordinate in the moment.
Stephen W. Porges’ more recent framework of physiological state and accessibility provides another way to understand what we may be watching. Within this framework, physiological state organizes which capacities are available for recruitment and expression. Having developed a capacity, such as hitting a major-league fastball, and being able to access that capacity under pressure in Game 3 of the National League Championship Series are different parts of the performance equation.
From this perspective, we can think of physiology as giving us “permission” for what’s possible and probable. Our skills, knowledge, intentions, and experience may still be there, while our access to them changes as our physiology changes. Intending to stay relaxed, confident, and present, and being able to see, anticipate, and respond with precision are connected. But the intention alone does not account for everything that makes hitting a baseball possible.
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Bauers describes a change in how he approaches the game. I’m interested in the physiology of that change. How his new approach and his physiological responses are linked. Who and what has helped make that possible for him now, within this team, within his family, within this culture, and within some of the biggest moments of his career?
Bauers offered one part of that story: “We play for each other.” He described teammates responding to mistakes by looking for ways to help one another. Those relationships and repeated experiences can shape physiological responses beneath the words. Trusted relationships can help make acceptance something a player can truly feel and authentically act on.
What becomes possible when falling short does not leave us feeling alone? When we have less to prove about ourselves with every outcome? When the people around us help us stay connected to the game we love, to one another, to why we are doing this, and to what we are capable of doing, whether we win or lose?
His intentions may be part of that change. They may help shape his physiological responses, just as those responses shape his access to confidence and belief. But when Bauers describes choosing “to be confident” or deciding to “stop caring about results,” those words alone don’t make it happen. Those intentions become something he can actually feel and act on to the degree that his physiological state makes them accessible under pressure. Otherwise, they’re just words we tell ourselves and the media.
We cannot define every process that makes a physiological shift possible. We also cannot determine a player’s physiological state from the results alone. A physiological state that supports access to their full range of capacities does not guarantee a home run when the game is on the line, and we may never know all the factors shaping Bauers’ physiological responses.
But can we start to look beneath words and intentions a bit more? Can we recognize and respect the role physiology plays, and learn to appreciate it, accept it, and come alongside it?
When we tell ourselves to relax, trust the process, or go out there and have fun, can we also become curious about who and what would help our physiology organize in a way that makes those experiences accessible?
Between our potential and our performance under pressure is our physiological state. That’s why accepting whatever shows up can be helpful. That’s why trusting our teammates can strengthen our belief in ourselves. That’s why it matters to know in our minds, and feel in our bodies, that we are valued and belong, win or lose.
Call it confidence. Call it belief. Call it team chemistry. Call it a new approach. But recognize the physiological state beneath it.
Bauers and the Brewers seemed to have found a way to feel safe enough to play within the pressure.
