I am finding that my students are coming to pitching lessons with a lousy OH throw. It is awful.
I have a glove radar and I measure their OH throw. It seems that it is impossible for these young ladies to pitch harder than they can OH throw. In fact, if their OH throw is 32 mph, they max out on pitching at 32.
My advice to them is to work on their OH throw, every day. It seems, as that improves and strengthens, so does their pitching.
Many times they need reminded to keep their elbow higher than their shoulder (etc.) With just a few reminders, they become really happy with their throwing.
I tell them that those balls that are hit back to them in the circle need to be an out.
Many pitchers never practice the throw to 1st base and that is why they overthrow the base.
Pitchers need ground balls and pop ups and line drives hit to them frequently, so they can get that out during the game. Then, they need to know how hard to throw the ball, when to lead the second baseman across 1st base, or when it is an easy toss to the bag.
They also need to be comfortable with how much area they are supposed to cover. I do teach mine to play defense, but I see many pitchers just stand and wait for someone else to pick up the ball.
I heard M. Candrea say recently that the elite athletes he has coming into the program, have spent so much time on their skills that they never learned to go out and play catch. We need to be teaching the girls to play catch. I really enjoyed that when I was young, but I didn't have Internet and texting and videos games at home, either.
I have a glove radar and I measure their OH throw. It seems that it is impossible for these young ladies to pitch harder than they can OH throw. In fact, if their OH throw is 32 mph, they max out on pitching at 32.
My advice to them is to work on their OH throw, every day. It seems, as that improves and strengthens, so does their pitching.
Many times they need reminded to keep their elbow higher than their shoulder (etc.) With just a few reminders, they become really happy with their throwing.
I tell them that those balls that are hit back to them in the circle need to be an out.
Many pitchers never practice the throw to 1st base and that is why they overthrow the base.
Pitchers need ground balls and pop ups and line drives hit to them frequently, so they can get that out during the game. Then, they need to know how hard to throw the ball, when to lead the second baseman across 1st base, or when it is an easy toss to the bag.
They also need to be comfortable with how much area they are supposed to cover. I do teach mine to play defense, but I see many pitchers just stand and wait for someone else to pick up the ball.
I heard M. Candrea say recently that the elite athletes he has coming into the program, have spent so much time on their skills that they never learned to go out and play catch. We need to be teaching the girls to play catch. I really enjoyed that when I was young, but I didn't have Internet and texting and videos games at home, either.
