Changeups Work Better When You Call Them

[Ken Krause]

Ask anyone who knows a thing or two about fastpitch softball pitching about the changeup and they’ll tell you it’s one of the greatest weapons a pitcher can have in her arsenal. The ability to take 10-15 mph off the speed of a pitch while making it look like it will be delivered at the […]

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[Cannonball]

Ken, you produced another exceptional article. Quick story, my daughter was coaching a game a couple of weeks ago and 3,4, and 5 were coming up from the team I helped coach before I had to stop coaching this year. My dd told the HC to be careful with the change up to two of those hitters since I had worked all summer with them. Both hit shots up the middle and almost took the head off of the pitcher. The changeup is the great equalizer BUT it can not be predictable meaning that a coach can not have a pattern when they call it. As I say to my hitters, "to be forewarned is to be forearmed."

 

[canyonjoe]

I think that coaches link a bad outcome to a bad decision too often. Someone hits a fastball 250 feet and you think nothing of it, but when you call a CU and someone gets a hit you tend to blame it on a bad call. I see teams that have a ball hit over their head and move the OF back 20 feet for the rest of the weekend and allow 10 singles instead of 1 triple.

 

[Rolling Hard]

VELO is overwhelmingly overrated across the board but coaches love it and (mistakenly, imo) recruit it only to have that pitcher that throws 72 mph get rocked second time thru the line up.
Pitchers are even more effective if the can throw at 3 or 4 different speeds.
Remember Odicci Alexander. She was great and probably topped out at 63 mph if I remember correctly.

 

[BB875]

A great change up is a definite equalizer. Being from the midwest, I remember Sara Groenewegen from Minnesota. She had a killer change up that she sold.

As a HS coach, speed kills for 85% of the kids we face. It's that other 15% that will make you PAY if you don't have an effectivce offspeed pitch. Get through the lineup a few times and those big hitters feast on speed. Throw a changeup in the dirt when its least expected and its gold!