Clear the mechanism.
Sports movies don't often get everything right, but Carl Edwards Jr. thinks "For Love of the Game" was dead on with the process in which fictional pitcher Billy Chapel (played by Kevin Costner) focuses in before he delivers.
The young Cubs pitcher has adopted a similar school of thought - focusing on breathing and blocking everything else out before he lets loose.
The day after picking up his first big-league save against the San Francisco Giants last week, Edwards said he didn't look at the hitter one time in the ninth inning.
"I was always looking down," he said. "If I could just slow it down to where I want it to go, then I feel like it kills some of the nerves. Basically all [that] night, it was deep breaths, telling myself, 'Hey, one pitch at a time, one batter at a time.'
"And that's what I did - Look down, take a deep breath, look up and deliver the pitch. It was something that kept me moving forward and smoothly and not overthinking things."
In another sports movie reference, Edwards said he can relate to the kid who wanted to pitch with headphones blasting "Big Poppa" in "Hardball."
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As adrenaline coursed through his veins, Edwards claims he didn't hear the 40,000 people in Wrigley Field that night, either.
"One deep breath and I don't hear anything," he said. "All of a sudden, you pitch and hear cheers and then same thing. Pitch, and then same thing."
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Edwards said it blows his mind how much the mental aspect comes into play.
"It's funny, on the first two hitters, I took a deep breath, but not too deep," he said. "And then all of a sudden, the last hitter, I look up and I didn't look at the crowd, but they were so loud. So I took a deep, deep breath and just delivered."
Edwards gave a lot of credit to Cubs sports psychologist Ken Ravizza and mental skills coordinator Darnell McDonald for his emergence this season as one of the Cubs' most trusted relievers.
The stuff has always been there for the 25-year-old former top prospect, but now he's learning to harness it, with a 2.89 ERA, 0.714 WHIP and 38 strikeouts in 28 innings across 27 appearances.
Those numbers are skewed a bit, too, from one poor outing when Edwards surrendered five runs on four walks and a hit in two-thirds of an inning to the St. Louis Cardinals on Aug. 13.
"He's just had that one blip and I like the way he came back from that," Maddon said. "I see him calm on the mound. When he comes in - inning in progress - and I have to give him the ball, he is fine.
"He's learning to become a major leaguer. I think he believes he belongs now and that he can do this. And that's the step that they all have to get beyond. I think he has grown here and he knows he can do it now."
Edwards seems to have grown even since that mid-August appearance, allowing only one run and four baserunners (three hits, one walk) in 8.1 innings while striking out 11 batters.
He helped keep things alive for Jason Heyward's walk-off Sunday with four straight outs against the heart of the Giants order.
"He has the potential to be a premier reliever in this league, period," Maddon said. "The fastball velocity and cut is an unusual combination and then combine that with a curveball that's good against both righties and lefties.
"If he can become an absolute strike-thrower with his fastball, he's gonna be really, really good. The only time they gt him in trouble right now is not that they're going to beat him up hitting the ball, it's that he's going to get himself in trouble missing the plate.
"That's what's been going on up until this point. However, here he's been really good except for that one outing. So the next level for me for him is to really nail down his command of the fastball."