12U pitchers throwing 58-60 mph

[radness]

Becoming the best have to train for the mix of
off speed and change ups.
... be careful thinking it can fool a batter twice!

 

[uncdrew]

We had a coach once who either thought they were super smart or were testing things. She called three change ups in a row. The girl hit the last one really hard.

 

[Towny9]

Even the best of the best can struggle with slow pitching if they rarely see it.

Oh it definitely happens at times. It should not happen to good hitters on a consistent basis though. My comment was more directed at the players who whine about “how hard it is to hit slow pitching” every time they see it.

 

[Towny9]

We had a coach once who either thought they were super smart or were testing things. She called three change ups in a row. The girl hit the last one really hard.

This is going to sound like a humble brag but oh well. When I first started coaching varsity baseball at the high school level, I was still playing competitively myself in a local wood bat summer league. Some of our better high school players would play in the league with the college kids and adults. One game I got fooled so bad on a curveball in the dirt that I actually fell down after I swung. Next pitch was another curveball except this time it was thrown for a strike and I hit it out to left center.

When I got back in the dugout, my high school players looked amazed, and one kid said “it was like you knew it was coming”. Another kid said “how do you go from falling down to hitting a home run in one swing?”.

I said “I did know it was coming”. What would you have thrown me after that first horrible swing? Another curveball of course.

Moral of the story - good hitters have a feel for what is coming based on the previous pitches and live a pitch ahead. Bad hitters are usually a pitch behind. It’s why pitching backwards is so effective at the higher levels.