Dealing with field conditions

[SESwildfire]

I have been struggling with my pitchers this season being able to adjust to various field conditions. This past weekend the circle was powder dirt basically digging a giant crater with every pitch. This has really been affecting my pitchers abilities to locate especially high/low in the strike zone. They spent their school seasons throwing mostly off turf and occasional dirt. What are some good tips/advice for dealing with conditions that impact their drive mechanics? It has been a mental block for them and consistently missing spots in games that they dont in practice on harder surfaces.

 

[Orange Socks]

Coming from a catcher's dad. Catcher's deal with giant valleys behind the plate too, but I recognize it's not the same. This is something that they will have to deal with the rest of their careers. If your pitchers are dragging their feet in a valley so is the opposing team. Gonna have to accept the conditions they are dealt. Have them fix the grooves to their liking.

 

[radness]

Practice more on bad field conditions.

Even create bad field conditions to practice on.
At home and go to where the dirt is of different conditions.

 

[Tatonka]

It's a struggle for sure and the only advice I can offer is have your DD train in as wide a variety of situations as possible...dry, wet, soft, hard, turf, calm, stressed, etc.. Hopefully she'll learn to adapt and overcome, recognizing she put in the work and she's prepared which will make her just that much better than the competition.

 

[SESwildfire]

That is one thing that has me puzzled I see opposing pitchers adapt to the conditions. Those that do the best are local teams used to the conditions. Im gonna have to bring in a trencher to mimic conditions we saw this weekend. The hole was legit 8" deep. Something new to me though this weekend was the hole created from the back step. We filled in everything, tamped it down the best we could. Lasted about two pitches. I joked to my pitchers the next practice was going to be on beach sand.

Great to slide in but the ball just died in that powder.

 

[radness]

They spent their school seasons throwing mostly off turf

This similar conundrum happens with pitchers who will throw practice indoors on Surface like the gym floor

and occasional dirt.

Throw more on dirt.

 

[malletfinger]

DD had this issue and it's still kind of there, but we armed her with a couple of things to try. One is to rely on pushing off the rubber itself (and not the back of the hole in front of the rubber). Another is to have only the back half of the drive foot on the rubber and the front on the dirt (i.e. in the hole, esp if it is large enough). It helps if they drive straight out instead of twisting the drive foot and then driving.

Another issue was the trench from the drag foot that other pitchers have left behind. The only advice that seemed to work here was to modify her mechanics to not have a heavy drag foot.

Lastly, if the landing spot for the front leg is affected either by soft dirt or another hole, the only thing we could think of was to dig the hole wider and flat (with her cleats) so that there was a smooth landing spot.

Anyway, that's what we worked on.