Struggling with pitching

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Nov 3, 2012
480
16
My 14 year old DD, was all over the place last summer. She had a couple of great weekends with a couple of no hitters. Then the next weekend she had more wild pitches then strikes. This happened more than once. Im taking fast balls 5 feet above the catchers head. We were both frustrated and she lost a lot of opportunities of innings becuase the coach stopped pitching her. She was also pitching well in practice. But got the Yips in the game. I was really concerned about her pitching career might be over.
The good news is she pitched better than she ever has this fall. She averaged 1.5 walks a game and they werent from bad misses. It really is 90% mental. Last summer, we really focused on the mental approach with a lot strategies. We have very specific and routine warm ups, we focused on breathing, mental imagery etc.

My advice is to hang in there, be patient and keep working hard. Each girl is different and some struggle more with the mental side. Mental skills are something you have to keep working on. Hopefully you have an understanding coach, that wont give up on her. Also Try using John Micheal Kelly's "Softball Smarts" materials.
Nothing worked over night, but she is so much more consistent this fall. Jus hang in there.


I dont know if common denominator but she was 13 last summer. Maybe tough year for kids.
 
Last edited:
Apr 23, 2014
389
43
East Jabib
WM - sounds like you and I are living in parallel universes! Had the exact same experience last weekend and this weekend. I attribute it to 10 YO over thinking when struggling this past weekend. Thinking about throwing strikes rather than just throwing the ball.
 

WARRIORMIKE

Pro-Staff Everything
Oct 5, 2009
2,815
48
At the Jewel in San Diego
My daughter is 12 pitched a no hitter on her rec team Quality pitching two days prior as a guest on a travel team. Them this past weekend she hit a girl in the head. Which she felt really bad about. Then last game of the day it was a walk a thon in our last inning. She just struggled
 

obbay

Banned
Aug 21, 2008
2,199
0
Boston, MA
overthinking is a good possibility!

We found that my DD (at U12) would sometimes throw too much warmup so that by the time the game started she had thrown close to a games-worth of pitches already. those games didn't usually go well. Maybe by the time the game started she was too relaxed mentally.

Conversely, sometimes she was thrown in to a game with only the minimal amount of warm up pitches and she did great.

Fortunately we figured it out before too long.

At young ages, kids aren't as aware of their bodies as they become later. it's easy for them to feel like they're doing nothing different when in fact their arm circle is passing behind their head (in the downward motion) which results in a pitch into the batters box. also they can be driving slightly off center which will also result in an unexpected location.

Remember this isn't a seasoned athlete you're working with, she's a kid. I think the one thing you can depend on is their performance is not dependable yet. Take the good with the bad, keep positive and keep going.
(like Dory said in finding Nemo - "just keep swimming...")
 
Last edited:
Dec 7, 2011
2,368
38
Common.

This last summer my DD shut down (almost shut out) potentially the two best teams she ever faced (one of them a returning Big10 allstar team) and then in an Orlando tourney against almost rec teams struggled like a noob....

That's why the best big school D1 pitchers are just so amazing to me. They not only have the gift of 65+ mph BUT they can come out appearance after appearance and display the mental consistency fortitude. That's why these pitchers are in the micro-percentage of our SB pitcher population.
 
Dec 5, 2012
4,143
63
Mid West
When girls are between 11 and 15, their bodies are in huge growth spurts... every time she grows an inch theres an adjustment that potentially needs made! Relax, and keep it fun for her
 

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