DD struggling with lh batters, mental side of pitching

Need some help with this. DD is second year 12 and has shown a lot of improvement, especially in practice after an early 2014 muscle injury that caused her to struggle over the summer. It seems like by now she should have figured this out but it is dogging her.

She has trouble throwing to lh batters. In particular, does not throw her curve as well to them because it breaks toward the batter. Curve is one of her better pitches in practice, she has sometimes said it's her best pitch. It has been pointed out to her that her screw breaks toward rh batters and that doesn't bother her but she just doesn't throw the curve with confidence to lefty.

One of the things we have done to deal with it is I stand in the box lefty, and it takes a few pitches but she eventually throws it correctly. There has to be a better/another approach. I currently am considering this a mental issue more than a mechanical issue.

So that leads us to our next hurdle. What I am seeing is that she is bringing good mechanics into the game for the first few batters- then if she bangs one off the screen or gives up a walk, she slows down, her footwork changes and only God and good luck can get her out of that inning. Most of her fb misses are high. She by far throws best when she throws fast, nothing in reserve, snapping it off on the Banzai side of the scale. How do we encourage the all out attitude? It is my guess that she feels she is failing her team, failing personally and is trying to fix it. I sure can't blame her for that but slowing down sure doesn't fix it.

Would like to hear how the seasoned parents and pros handle this. Her PC is definitely on the "teach form and the results will take care of themselves" approach if that helps.

WW, I have a similar student that you are describing to a T.
With mine, it's definitely a fear of failure. She's extremely emotional and even cries in class just talking about her games (which I make her do because I want to get into her head).
She always starts out great, then that one hit, or one error and she's downhill from there.

She was late to start pitching 1st year 12u, she's now 1st year 14u and still struggling, but there is a small amount to progress being made--she just missed 2 months out with an injury due to her throwing so hard and not working on her mechanics or her core work. Her Dr. diagnosed with her with an imbalance in her hip and has her on core exercises.

The difference in my student is she is not worried about failing the team, her troubles usually stem when she gets disappointed that they are not pulling their weight behind her, but whatever the case, she can't get it back again.

The one thing I had my dad do was film her game, that way we can discuss what happened and how her mechanics changed. Which she normally denies is happening.

When you talk to her does she know she's changing her mechanics? If she doesn't, try filming her.
I'd help her get through it with baby steps. Encourage 2 strong innings out of her--all out throwing, no matter what the outcome. Use a reward, go out to dinner or something for a success.
Lots of situational practices at home using stress.

Jojo, thanks. Some good info there. I think filming her is a great idea and I did just that tonight at a lesson. She does deny it a bit- she won't really argue but you can tell she doesn't buy what I'm saying sometimes.

We are going the reward route off and on, she has some $5 drink at Starbucks that she would do anything for. Just like your player though, a few bad pitches and things get sideways quick. The good news is she has really good defense behind her and she knows it so that should take pressure off but man she is hard on herself.

We will keep on with some realistic practices at home. I read an article by Cat Osterman awhile back about positive energy and knowing that you have the support of your parents, we are trying to give her as much positive feedback as possible and it does seem to be helping. Baby steps is right. Thanks.

I am not sure why winning an argument over mechanics with a video helps your relationship.

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It's not about winning an argument. It's about situational awareness.

OILF and Jojo, thank for the help. It's been a really busy week so I waited until now to respond. I am very convinced that this is mental approach problem that leads to mechanical problems. She is a mentally strong hitter, she actually does her best hitting against the best pitching and under stress so I know she can straighten this out with her pitching. It's all about believing.

OILF, I think that she was getting reminded of failures from a variety of sources, from parents to one kid in particular on her last team, etc etc. She is on a different team now and a couple of things are happening on this team. The parents are pretty quiet. No advice or "encouragement" from the stands, just a lot of "way to go's" when things go right. (On our last team there was a family in particular that did not understand that every pitch called by coach was not supposed to be a strike). The other thing is they are leaving pitchers in until things go impossibly wrong in an elimination game. She used to pitch parts of games, now she is pitching whole games. The coaches call pitches but there are not a lot of mound visits or advice, they call pitches and try to get the c and p working as a team and keep the coaches out of it. So far that has been working I think. Dd is up and down, had a couple rough innings but she stayed in and had good innings after that so she worked through it.

She used her curve quite a bit when she was ahead Saturday. (She said it wasn't working Thursday night so she didn't throw it.) Got several k's off her change and curve Saturday. We have been working on hitting the zone with the curve in practice instead of throwing it off the zone for an unhittable sucker pitch. I think working on throwing that back door too is a great idea.

One other thing I did was I cut a strike zone out of a piece of plywood. I then cut a rectangle out of the middle, leaving a six inch wide target representing the outside edge of the zone. I covered that with carpet. I measured the exact distance to the front of the plate and hung it in my cage. I told her to work on hitting the corners and the edge of the zone with every pitch. I stayed out and watched the first night but the idea is she can have a workout with no adult input, no fussing. I kept quiet and it was really surprising how accurate she was. A miss was obvious and a hit really made the target move which I think was almost a reward. I thought she was randomly throwing pitches. She threw several buckets and said "how much do you want me to throw? That was three innings, I only walked one". I told her great job and suggested that was a great workout, that maybe in the future throw all her pitches and hit the edges and corners and then work on throwing her fb as fast as she can through the bottom half of the hole in the middle for times when she is in trouble or has a struggling batter she is just plain going after.

Anyway, any further suggestions or observations are appreciated.

I would recommend having a batter stand in the left handed batters box during practice - and throw sequences of pitches like a game. If I have a catcher with us I will do it myself. If that is not an option make a cardboard cut out of a batter.

We do this but not enough. I am a lefty myself, not nervous about getting hit at all and I have stuck my hip out a few times just to prove getting hit does not cause death or disfigurement.....

We will work on this on a more regular basis, again a good suggestion.

My DD is a lefty in 2013 playing 12U mostly A TB she was walked over 30 percent of the time and even this year playing 14U she was walked 20 percent of the time. Part of it is that she is patient but a lot are just 4 pitch walks. The other thing I notice is that she almost never gets a pitch on the inner part of the plate. 1 HBP all year.