Off season focus?

coach james · Oct 30, 2014

55/57 mph is really good and is above average for her age in most places.
As said above continue to improve on core and leg strength. The unofficial number to introduce a rise ball into her arsenal is typically 55... So, in my opinion a rise is due. Even if blue isn't calling them, it's still hard for a lot of batters to lay off a ball up in the zone.
Has she spent any time with a rise thus far?, like learning the grip, slot, or posture?

ThunderStruck8 · Oct 30, 2014

She has worked with the grip and spin of the rise a little. With so many people saying it will probably be her toughest pitch to learn, we are taking our time with it, and continuing to improve her other pitches. Not sure it will be a usable pitch any time soon, but I could be wrong. With her tendency to throw high, and get a lot of girls to chase it, we haven't really pushed it just yet.

coach james · Oct 30, 2014

Your absolutely correct in saying that it's the hardest pitch to learn. It will take on average 2 years of practice to get really good at it. So, I'm recommending that she add rise ball drills to every practice. The hardest transition for many is the slicing portion. Meaning, keeping the hand facing outward in the release and not allowing any kind of palm facing forward rotation to occure. If she continues to progress with it, by the time she's a freshman in hs she'll be doing better than 90% of her peers!
Good luck, James
Try to post a video of her. I doubt that I'm alone in wanting to see her mechanics to reach 57mph at 13...

Doug Romrell · Oct 30, 2014

The riseball is much easier to learn if a pitcher started with IR rather than HE.

ThunderStruck8 · Oct 30, 2014

coach james said:
Try to post a video of her. I doubt that I'm alone in wanting to see her mechanics to reach 57mph at 13...

Her mechanics are ever evolving and adjusting. She is on pitching hiatus for a little while right now, but here is a .gif of her doing some step warmups before she got into full stride pitches. This is 10 pics put together from a 'fast burst' camera app I use to take pics so we can sit and look at form later and study each picture one by one. These were from this past June, so her mechanics have changed slightly since then.

Here is an in-game pic from this fall

Doug Romrell · Oct 30, 2014

Thunder, I can't tell for sure, but it looks like she's getting behind the ball a bit starting around the 11:00 position and going toward release.

ThunderStruck8 · Oct 31, 2014

Doug Romrell said:
Thunder, I can't tell for sure, but it looks like she's getting behind the ball a bit starting around the 11:00 position and going toward release.

Doug, you are absolutely correct. She is making a slight turn of her hand at that point. That was the first thing I noticed when we looked at the pictures. It's a little easier to spot in still shots taken at 20-40 frames per second rather than full video.

Off season focus?

Welcome to Discuss Fastpitch

Your FREE Account is waiting to the Best Softball Community on the Web.

coach james

ThunderStruck8

coach james

Doug Romrell

ThunderStruck8

Doug Romrell

ThunderStruck8

Similar threads

Latest posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Share this page

Online statistics

Forum statistics