Advice to New pitching parent

[tim_s]

I've typed this response here a few times now; I am not a great pitching coach mechanics wise, at all.......but one of the things i've been able to do is a lot of between the ears work

tell her to focus on developing a routine......take the ball back from the catcher.......stand two steps behind the rubber......take the sign......exhale, step with your left then your right onto the rubber, simulate sign, rotate ball in hand to the grip you want, inhale and exhale half a breath, deliver the pitch........obviously just one half-assed example of a possible routine, but tell her top develop one, right down to a silly finite level

the key to a routine is they do it EVERY pitch, same way every time.......when they don't get a call, someone makes an error, the batter gets a hit, the other team scores.......she has that routine to fall back on.......no matter what, take a deep breath, focus on the routine......the routine will become calming, something to fall back on

3-2 count, 2 out, up by one? focus on that situation, it gets in your head.....focus on the routine, and all you focus on is the routine (in a perfect world)

it is simple advice, and sounds silly......but i can't tell you how many pitchers i've asked how they like their breath when they start their motion, and they have no clue........for a pitcher, routine is their friend


i had one girl sometimes back in 10 & 12u i'd make stand in the back of the circle, before she started her routine, and i'd tell her to do a "wiggle" - she give her whole body a quick shake, like she's clearing her head, only exaggerated......it helped her throw out whatever bad was happening, and brought her focus back to her routine........fast forward to 2023, and we're in the state final, up 1, last inning......she looked a little flustered, i yelled from the dugout for a wiggle......she did it, she smiled, and had about a 5 pitch inning, setting them down in order for the first time that day, and we won a state championship 2-1.......she plays in college now, and i guarantee if i ever see her pitch, i could call for it from the stands, she'd laugh and find her focus

 

[RADcatchers]

At the end of day this problem solving, mental toughness and earned confidence from overcoming obstacles thru sustained hard work and grit is the true benefit

Life skills!

 

[DonnyS]

Hard truth here. Not everyone is cut out to be a pitcher.

This.

 

[Stu0529]

Well she had a great day pitching today at her three games. I am hoping she has figured it out! Hoping she continues to improve!

 

[daywalkerdad]

Well she had a great day pitching today at her three games. I am hoping she has figured it out! Hoping she continues to improve!

Great news.

 

[Classof2020]

Throwing into a net isn't going to get it. She needs to have a catcher, most likely you or your SO.

In order for to become "good" at pitching, she has to pitch. If she isn't getting enough, she needs to find a team where she can pitch.

This! unless she has another family member to catch for you her you need to learn. There is no way she is throwing too hard for you to learn. I was there when my daughter started at 11. Get a glove, get a face mask and some shin guards and get out there and catch for her. She is not going to want to throw into a net for long. It's not great for feedback and it's an inefficient use of time. You will start to learn the spins and start to learn what she is doing right and wrong.

Also I hate to be a negative nelly but I would suggest that unless she really really is sure she wants to pitch that the fact that she is falling apart at this age she might mean she's not be cut out for pitching. It only gets more stressful from here as the teams get better, the batters get bigger and stronger, the coaches can be demanding, the weekends can be long, the innings can be longer, etc. The way I knew my kid was cut out for pitching was stepping up to help a tournament team as a rec player going out and getting her a$$ handed to her and getting hit by a pitch in the arm she didn't cry, wouldn't leave the circle and she stood there in the dugout and said yeah I can do another inning.

But if she wants it you can help her get it!

 

[ninthgirl]

To add a slightly different story - sometimes it is pitching that can get a kid to be that tough kid who can handle getting utterly crushed and still go back out there and try again.

My 12 year old has been pitching for about 2 years. When she first started her coach wouldn't pitch her in games for fear - based on having coached her already for a while - that she would get mentally crushed. What the coach didn't know was that my spouse had been working with her on the mental side of the game while bucket parenting. She finally got an inning and proved herself capable of handling rec. Around comes all-stars, where of course things are harder. The first time things started going sideways she definitely got rattled. But it was going through getting rattled and having to keep going that gave her the confidence to keep going. Those experiences let her build to the next time she had a bad game and had to bounce back, and again, and again. 2 years in and honestly I sometimes have to step back from my kid's confidence, a little shocked. I remember the kid whose coach was afraid one inning in the circle would break her. The kid I'm now parenting is consistently coming to us asking for more challenge and more opportunity, even after plenty of tough losses and hard hits.

As people have mentioned, the mental part of pitching is both the challenge and the biggest benefit. My kid would be a different person if she never started pitching. Even if she stopped tomorrow the hours of bucketing and the $$$ on lessons have been worth it.

 

[steve1244]

You have to catch her. You're actually more important to her development than her pitching coach if she has one. At lessons, you need to learn what the PC is instructing her to do, and then take it to your BPs/practice sessions at home. Success in practice hopefully carries over to games, and that gets her over the hump confidence-wise. Pitching is hard, though, especially at the start, when it's a long process of sucking and, in some cases, getting worse while basic flaws are corrected. It's also whack-a-mole, where as soon as one thing gets fixed, it causes another thing to go whacko. She's not getting through this process, though, without you working with her multiple times of the week, watching what she's doing and replaying the lesson at home.

Once a kid has a fundamentally correct motion that works for her body, then it gets easier, but it's still not easy.

 

[lostcreek1]

It is like participating in another sport and should be treated as such. You practice softball with your team, then on your own you practice your other sport pitching.

 

[LW23]

Seeking advice on how to help my daughter not fall apart on the pitching mound during games! She does really great in lessons, but is having all kinds of issues getting it together at the mound during games. She is 12u and only pitched maybe 3 innings but has been pulled twice. She feels so defeated and my heart breaks for her. I also wanna say I never played softball so I try to help her but I am terrified of her hard pitches. She has a great strength it’s just getting that girl to the game not this other person that takes over. Any advice would be helpful!

You have received some good responses to your question, especially around catching her and the amount of practice time it requires to be a pitcher. Pitching is a marathon not a sprint, your daughter's pitching future hasn't been determined. If her mechanics are not right in the circle, she will not get the result she wants at the plate. I can't stress this enough, and there are several people on this site that can help with mechanics. Maybe post a video if you feel comfortable doing that. The mental part of pitching has a lot to do with your child's personality, my DD is a perfectionist type, and it caused some issues she had to learn to work around and deal with as she progressed in her career. Realistic goal setting really helped her focus on specific things. At 12 she threw a fastball and was developing a changeup. We tracked overall strike percentage, and first pitch strikes. When you DD starts getting wild in games and gets frustrated most likely her mechanics are breaking down and it's time to pull her. You also need to be on a team where she can get circle time. How does she do at home? Realistically she should be able to throw 70% strikes to her catcher in practice for location (corners at a minimum). Once she can do that, she can learn to change planes with her fastball. Add in a changeup and she can be successful in 12's.