Jenna Abbott

Since she is not going to blow the ball by batters, I think she uses the unique pitching motion to throw off a batters timing. She will never be an ACE, but Auburn seems to use her effectively in late inning relief. In my opinion her motion is not illegal, and the only borderline IP call would be that her plant foot is awfully close to being outside the pitching lane.

sluggers said:

This is not particularly unusual. Here is Lisa Fernandez doing the same motion. Lisa is doing it as a drill, but I could see a kid doing this if she was struggling with the full motion.

[video]https://youtu.be/z4WQsaiPLE0[/video]

Click to expand...

Agree. Lots of girls do the same motion they just start it different.

sluggers said:

This is not particularly unusual. Here is Lisa Fernandez doing the same motion. Lisa is doing it as a drill, but I could see a kid doing this if she was struggling with the full motion.

Click to expand...

When does her pitching motion start? From the gifs in the OP, her looks like her shoulder might start square like normal then she starts her pitching motion.

I may be asking this in the wrong area, but I just see so many different ways kids are driving off the rubber it makes me wonder if my dd is learning the right way. My dd is being taught now to drive off rubber coming over top of the toes of drive foot, drag laces to ground. Fyi-She was taught to drag side of big toe from first PC, she would pivot at rubber before the push and drag side of toe/foot. Since my dd struggles with her drive off rubber, I've experimented with all types of ways to push off jumping, pushing, hopping, slow push, fast push, rolling start etc... and It feels so easy the way this lady (Rita Gylman video) is saying to do it! Don't get me wrong I'm not saying this is the right way to push off, idk! I'm just wondering because lots of pitchers I see pitching at tournaments are doing some type of this sideways leap and having success. While my dd is struggling with driving off the rubber, part of me wonders if this would be easier for her and if she should change what she's doing, but the other part of me thinks should it be easy? if its easy everyone would do it. Is this reason for so many sideways leaping pitchers? I'm really rambling, sorry! I guess what I really want to know is, is it normal for a pitcher to struggle with getting a good drive off the rubber? should it be an easy leap like that video shows? Should they feel light on their feet like a bunny hop or should they be digging into the ground as hard as they can?