Pitching Drills And Tips

            I have received numerous amounts of instructions on pitching throughout my career, so here I’ll be relaying the information that I learned to you.

            The most important part of being a pitcher is accuracy. A lot people can throw the ball hard, but to be a pitcher you have to be able to control where you throw the ball. If you are a beginning pitcher you should always start exclusively throwing your fastball, not trying to throw all the fancy pitches, because you have to solidify your go-to pitch with your fastball. When I first started, something that really helped me was loosening my grip on the fastball. I gripped it with almost my whole hand, but you have to concentrate on only gripping it with the tips of your index and middle fingers. This should help you get the height of your pitch where you want it to be. Once you have that down you need to make sure that when you’re releasing the ball you’re pointing your front foot directly at the catcher. This should help you with your placement of the ball left and right. With these two forces working together, you should be able to place the ball wherever you want it to go.

            Now I’ll talk about off-speed pitches like the curveball. My friend had the nastiest curveball on the entire team and I could never figure out why. I looked at his grip, his delivery, everything, but I couldn’t figure out how he got so much movement. Finally, after many YouTube videos, I found out how to get more movement. Put more space between the ball and your palm, maybe a couple inches, grip the ball loosely, and don’t worry about throwing it as hard as you can. If you grip the ball loosely, your hand will create the spin naturally. You’ll lose some velocity, but the ball will move a lot more. Some other things I like to keep in mind when throwing off-speed pitches, is to throw your change-up exactly like your fastball. Just as hard, same wrist motion, everything. Also, when you’re throwing a slider, you do your pitching motion thinking ‘fastball, fastball’ but right when you release it, ever so slightly spin the ball to give it that sliding action.

            If you’re really struggling to gain velocity, try to push off with more of your lower body. Pitching is 50% in the legs. Really focus on driving off of that back leg and try and release the ball as close to the plate as possible. That should help you gain a few extra MPH’s, but be sure you aren’t forgetting the rest of your fundamentals.

            If your accuracy is suffering, I have an extremely productive drill that was really the drill that helped me become a pitcher. The drill is, you as the pitcher are either on the mound or 60 feet away from the catcher. You start your delivery without looking at the catcher, and right before you release it look at your catcher and he should have placed his glove right where he wants the ball. The short reactions really helps you focus and pinpoint where you need the ball to go, and it surprisingly really helps in game time situations.

            That’s all of the tips I have on improving your pitching. Thank you for reading, it is very much appreciated, and be sure to check out my other posts for ways to improve your overall baseball game.

-Brandon