Swampboy,
Fair enough. Telling the pitcher to hit his spots is kinda like coaches saying "come on now, just throw strikes". I get it, he's already trying to do that. However, telling someone to do the obvious when they aren't can sometime refocus them on the task at hand especially when mommy is taking them out of focus.
Unfortunately, the pitcher in question hasn't taken mommy out of the equation as the pitcher talks about it in the dugout.
If son (as the catcher) can't figure out which pitches the pitcher can control on a given day without asking, he probably needs to quit catching.
I like the idea of asking about setup.
He hands out encouragement regularly. When that stops working, he tends to get more direct. "start getting closer to your spots or next time the hitter will tag it, so focus on hitting the spots".
This is the only pitcher he struggles with.
slider, not sure I agree completely. But I think I get your point. In this case it was seting up way outside and throwing inside or down the pipe.