Hitting Spots

[Jdeesso]

My DD is first year 12u and have started on hitting spots on the corners. This is fairly new to us and coming along…slowly. The other day her coach had her throw and was asking her to hit spots on the corners and up and down. We’ve never focused or even discussed that with her and her PC. It’s hard enough to hit corners and then to add in high/low.

She isn’t a wunderkid 12u pitcher that hits all her spots with different pitches and does have some control issues (pitching about a year). Just curious when you DDs are working on hitting spots if you focused on the corners more so than high and low.


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[Lance Steckler]

honestly? if she's been pitching a year, probably 6 months ago was the time to really start hitting spots.

 

[Lightning]

DD's PC had her working on spots as soon as she could hit the strike zone somewhat consistently, definitely within a year of starting to pitch.

 

[Jdeesso]

honestly? if she's been pitching a year, probably 6 months ago was the time to really start hitting spots.

Thank you. At 6 months she was not nearly as accurate and for her that would prob have been too much too fast. We were focusing on mechanics, throwing hard and in the zone.


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[Jdeesso]

DD's PC had her working on spots as soon as she could hit the strike zone somewhat consistently, definitely within a year of starting to pitch.

Thank you. That seems like where we are at and similarly getting consistent in the zone. Does your DD work on spots inside /outside and up/down?


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[Lightning]

Thank you. That seems like where we are at and similarly getting consistent in the zone. Does your DD work on spots inside /outside and up/down?


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Yes. She's a couple years older than your daughter, though, and she's been at it for longer. Her PC went from quadrants when she was first mastering the strike zone, then when DD got better at quadrants she had her work on hitting the corners of the strike zone.

By now, a good part of practice is not just mechanics but spots.

 

[uncdrew]

You need to be throwing at some target. Perhaps at first it's the entire strike zone, but it needs to get much smaller than that pretty quickly.

Play "around the world" games with her. There are several. How many pitches does it take to hit all 4 corners. Or all 9 spots? Put a volleyball/basketball on a tee on the inside corner and have her knock it off.

 

[gmorg]

First year 12u we switched pitching coaches. That winter was when she started hitting corners. Truth be told my DD is no fire thrower, but she has really good location. Now up at 14u she is doing well, definitely a pitcher who pitches to her defense, now time to work on the velocity ...

Hitting location becomes so important against those second year 12u and up teams. Girls who throw heat but catch too much plate will get hit once bats catch up to them.

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[cnardone]

MY dd's PC breaks the zone into High, Middle Low both inside and outside. Pretty quickly into the learning process we starting playing the spots game. We start high and in. She gets two chances to hit her spot. If she hits her spot, PC does a burpy. If she misses dd does the burpy. Then we move to mid in, etc.. so 6 spots in total. They don't always do the burpies, but spots is early in every lesson.

She is second year 12U now and has pretty good control. The team recently has a 'Hit your spots competition' One of the other pitchers had only ever worked in / out. When asked to throw upstairs, everything was a foot high. You need to be able to through up in the zone. at 10 and 12U I am convinced a decent fastball at the letters is the best pitch you can have. If she is not ready to break the zone into 3 levels, start with 2.

 

[ArmWhip]

I am typically more concerned about velocity than location. My reasoning is that if you work a lot on locations you develop mechanics in response to that goal, a nice, smooth, controlled motion. Later on when you need more velocity you end up changing your mechanics and have to start over learning control. If you watch any college games in person or even any high level travel you see that most pitchers throw hard, with a lot of effort. So I favor learning mechanics which allow a pitcher to throw the ball fast and then learn to throw to spots with that motion.