First thought that helps minimize injuries is that pitching is more than just throwing. Use the strike zone to your advantage...change speed and location of your pitches to disrupt the hitter's timing.
Learn the hitting flaws. Most lineups only have a few grooved hitters even on the pro level.
Learn how to take advantage of the flaw and pitch to that specific flaw.
If
you’re at the Little League level, eventually your catcher will learn
the flaws, too. Right now he’s learning to receive, block pitches, set
defenses, and busy watching the hitter’s feet and bat speed while
tracking your pitch.
Pitching coaches and pitchers have their own language and sayings to get the message across:
Sit and Drive…Land at a 45
“Sitting”
helps you to not “rush”, but instead, stay balanced in your delivery.
As you step toward home plate, stride so that the ball of your lead foot
and toe will land at a 45 degree angle. This ensures proper hip
rotation after your lead foot lands, and that you’ll be using your legs
as well as your arm in your pitching mechanics.
Push, pop...over the top...leaves you with pep in your step*
The
push is the balanced push off of the pitching plate (pitcher’s rubber).
Pop is a term for the hip rotation after landing the front foot at a 45
degree angle during the delivery.
“Over
the top” is the action of the trailing foot in a complete follow
through (this happens naturally after your pitching arm elbow passes by
the opposite knee following your delivery). Hence, after your elbow
passes your knee in your follow through, your throwing side foot will
rise above your throwing side hip without any extra effort on your part. This is what pitching coaches actually mean when they say “bend your back” in regards to a follow through.
*More on leaves you with pep in your step
This
just means that you’ll have more endurance/stamina because you’re using
your legs and your body to pitch with…instead of just using your arm which will make tire faster and can lead to injury.
Shoulder to shoulder makes your pitches bolder
For
control of your pitches, your front shoulder heads (points) to the
location you want your pitch to go. After delivery, your back shoulder
will point toward the same target that your front should was targeted
at… which greatly improves control accuracy and will occur naturally
with the correct follow through. This is what pitching coaches call
“full rotation”.
Bolder
pitches means that you’ll spot your pitches to areas that hitter’s have
trouble hitting solidly (they prefer to hit the ones that are thrown
over the middle ten inches of the plate in the strike zone).
Pitching to a dime* makes the hitter bitter
The
mitt is not the target for the pitcher. It is better to throw (not aim)
to a smaller target. A dime target is small, but if you miss- you’ll
miss “small”. [Remember a pitcher targets areas away from the middle ten
inches of the plate.] Instead of pitching in the middle of the plate,
you’ll focus on the catcher’s knees and shoulders since they are usually
outside of the middle ten inches of the plate. Therefore, visualize and
concentrate (focus) on a dime located on the catcher’s knees and
shoulders as targets before and during the delivery of your pitch.
*Also, contrary to some coaches’ thinking, you’re never too young to
develop this kind of concentration skill… especially when pitching.
Any
coach, on any level worth his salt, routinely has his pitchers practice
pitching to a designated catcher. At each league level, from Little
League to MLB, pitchers follow a Sequence Pitching Schedule. This is
another important process to help pitchers develop arm strength,
confidence, and command & control. During sequence pitching
sessions, it’s imperative that the pitcher’s pitches are charted by a
helper. This promotes a game like atmosphere…to simulate game like
pressure.
Also,
during the throwing session, the pitchers usually alternate throwing 5
pitches from a full windup and then 5 pitches from the stretch. The
number of pitches thrown during a session depends on the number of days
until the next scheduled appearance in a game. Once the number of
pitches to be thrown during the session is determined, the catcher will
call the type of pitch and the location for each pitch. On the Little
League level, 1 is a fastball and 2 is a change. In higher levels of
competition, more types of pitches are thrown, and the pitches are
numbered respectively. Locations are also numbered on the catcher. The
right and left knees of the catcher are numbered 1 and 2 & the right
and left shoulders of the catcher are numbered 3 and 4. On a side note,
since the pitcher is getting valuable feedback from a capable helper
after the session, make sure the helper has a clip board with a pencil
and paper that have rectangular strike zones with cubes inside the
rectangles to note the location and type of pitch thrown during the
session. For the benefit of the pitcher’s focus, the helper shouldn’t
interact with the pitcher until after the throwing session. The helper
will silently circle pitches that miss their spot and mark pitches that
are on target during the session. It is recommended that punishment of
some type for missing the called location be used to make the session
more competitive among the pitchers on the team.
GRIP
With
seams, the pitch will sink. Across the seams, the pitch will not sink
as much. Some will suggest that gripping a ball across the seams will
make it rise. Even the best power pitchers don’t really have the ball
rise when their grip is across the seams due to physics.
Choking
the pitch will reduce the velocity. Also, choking the pitch is better
for younger pitchers because it produces a natural change up. When a
pitcher matures, usually when they start shaving, a pitcher can learn
breaking pitches and other grips for a change up.
Your
ultimate goal as a pitcher is to keep the hitter off balance by
changing the speed and location of your pitches. Be stoic & never
show your emotions in a game when you are pitching. Do this and you will
have an edge over the hitters you face.
