Struggling to throw strikes

[BigSkyHi]

Have been impressed with this type of warm-up for the kids stressing hitting targets smaller than the ball at each station.

 

[Hawk_]

Not a pitching coach at all..... but I am a second year 12u coach. I will defer to the Pitching guys and girls on mechanics, but I will say: Reminder that she is 11, it will come. Speed and hitting spots will come quicker than you think if she is working and getting proper instruction. Secondly: Things change for girls that age when they get a batter. They are scared to get hit cause they think they have to strike everyone out or throw a strike with every pitch. As a coach, if she throws a pitch and it's a ground ball in the infield, I'm happy. She did her job.

 

[HunterMO]

Not a pitching coach at all..... but I am a second year 12u coach. I will defer to the Pitching guys and girls on mechanics, but I will say: Reminder that she is 11, it will come. Speed and hitting spots will come quicker than you think if she is working and getting proper instruction. Secondly: Things change for girls that age when they get a batter. They are scared to get hit cause they think they have to strike everyone out or throw a strike with every pitch. As a coach, if she throws a pitch and it's a ground ball in the infield, I'm happy. She did her job.

Thank you for mentioning this. I wished I had after reading it. I am a huge believer in this mentality. Too much pressure is put on kids to throw perfect strikes at young ages. Yes, we've all experienced walk fests in 10u and 12u. But, the earlier pitchers understand that routine grounders are good things the better. Do you want an out in one pitch or five? I know what my DD would say.

I'd rather my pitcher work fast while strengthening her fundamentals/mechanics rather than her slow down to feel safe and throw strikes all of the time.

DD turned a BIG corner with her latest growth spurt (hello puberty). Prior she didn't feel connected and more loosey goosey (her words). After the spurt she said she felt she could drive and throw stronger. This plus a couple tweaks and focusing on whip and she jumped almost 10mph over the course of a month or two.

It will come.

 

[ArmWhip]

Overall she looks pretty good. I am a little concerned about her drive off the rubber, she goes up too much and not out enough. This is usually caused by using the quads for drive and not the glutes. If she can keep her push off foot a little more inline and not turn it out so much that would help. Focusing on keeping the foot-shin angle at 90 degrees and getting on the ball of the foot at push off are also part of it.

I am wondering about her mental approach. When a pitcher has a wild spell, and most young pitchers will get them, there is a tendency to start steering or guiding the ball. The brain can't make the body throw strikes and when it tries it usually makes things worse. "Aim with your eyes and trust your mechanics", that's what I tell them. Try to include some speed work in her practices, have her focus on throwing the ball fast without concern for where it goes, if it's a strike fine, if it's not that's OK too. Tell her to 'let it fly'.

 

[STRIKE3]

@ambern11 there are some good suggestions here for sure. There are always ways to tweak certain areas but sometimes really not needed.

Based on what you said that she is basically really on and then really off at times (not your words but my take away) I am going to make far different suggestion.

Feel free to ignore or try. Completely up to you....And I could point out several things like others but overall I think she is doing alot of great things for her age. Would be hesitant to change much is my point but try this if you want to.

Have her look at the cathers glove the whole pitch, every pitch, and even more when she get's tired. From the start of the pitch to the end of the pitch tell her not to take her eyes off the catcher's glove (or whatever spot she is supposed to throw to).

From your video, she starts looking at the catcher, then changes her view to the ground (maybe looking where to land IDK) then back to the catcher. I have seen MANY top notch pitchers that do the same I promise and it doesn't cause any issues. My oldest did the same thing but it worked for her. However, as the game goes on, she get's a little bit tired, she likely is looking back at the catcher later and later and is off especially at that age.

Simply say.... trust your mechanics..... keep your eyes focused on your spot, do not look at your landing spot, the WHOLE pitch and see if that makes a difference.

Very simple to do, no mechanical changes at all, and might work. I stress "might" but would try that first. Just my initial thoughts.

Good luck and please let us know if you try it and the results!

S3

 

[HasBeenorNeverWas]

@sluggers and @wheresmycar thank you, I feel this has been an issue for quite some time. She definitely used to even bring the ball behind her, which led to her arm path going directly to the batter. We worked on this some this evening and it definitely did help. Also, earlier this week we started the lock/unlock drill. Thanks for your response!

 

[HasBeenorNeverWas]

As others have pointed out, I see a wobbly arm path (starting with the backswing), and a slight case of monkey butt at release. (What Sluggers said.)
It looks to me like she may be thinking about 'throwing' the ball still though (meaning that she's trying to snap/time a release with effort from her hand), rather than allow the ball to just be ejected.
Also, the drive foot is completely sideways and dragging on its side. Like an anchor. This is impacting her timing and hip position. I'd get that right foot a little more on toes, toes forward-ish.
Looks pretty good though. Correct the drive and get a little closer to body at release, she'll probably add 5mph too.

Thanks so much, she would be very happy with 5mph, would finally get her over 50 lol. I thought we had fixed her turning her foot, I hadn't recorded her for awhile and evidently she has picked it up again. We will work on that and getting her on her toes

 

[HasBeenorNeverWas]

My DD struggles with consistency at times as well. She'll go 1-2-3 in one inning and then walk 2 or 3 the next. Something we are working on. Here are a lot of words, but really only a couple points that stuck out me.

From the past few years of working with my DD....here are my suggestions (some have already been mentioned).....
- start back vs step back: Let her do her here. My only suggestion is to have her stop dropping the heal of her left foot during the step back. Try to have her stay more on the ball/toes almost loading into. This will allow her to start her "thrust" from the back foot rather than simply transfer her weight back to the stride foot. This will make it easier for her to be in more of a sprinters position and get the right knee over the toes of her right foot. It's a small adjustment but made a HUGE difference for my DD. She might even say striding "feels" easier. The advantage of the start back (versus step back) with this is that a start puts her in a more traditional "sprinters" position to start with.


- swing back: Others have said her shoulders get twisted due to the extent of her swing back and I agree. I'd suggest lessening the amount of travel of her swing back. Timing here is key as well. A pitcher really needs to make sure the arm isn't still moving backwards while the rest of the body is starting to move forward. This will cause twisting of the shoulders and the arm circle to be "out of round" and late. Your pitcher looks like she recovers well, but as she gets into innings/pitches and gets tired this could be an issue of the arm starting to be late/sloppy. DD pitches out of the glove BUT can sometimes pull it down to/behind her right hip as she launches or will break from the glove really early causing the arm to be late. Usually results in pitches to be in the dirt or down and right.

- Hips: In my opinion she doesn't get back to 45(ish) at toe touch. Resulting in a bit of monkey butt and the arm being away from the body. My DD does the same and she fights consistency because of it. The first piece to help is to get her drag leg to be on the toes and not the inside of the foot. Get her to think laces to the catcher the whole time. She needs to get her hips to 45 at toe touch so she can create "brush" with the forearm. Simply put....laces forward, hips 45, & brush the belly/hip with the arm.

View attachment 22157 <-- Example of 45(ish) hips at toe touch/foot down.

There is A LOT of advice already in this thread. Please don't take it that your DD is some awful pitcher. The basics of her mechanics look good and pretty smooth. Some tweaks, reps, reps, and even more reps and she should become more consistent.

I think she is doing great. We won't try and make huge changes all at once, hopefully small cues that are easy to fix one at a time! I definitely feel like her hip gets in the way occasionally, and many times she has to throw around it, which makes her pitch go way outside. We will definitely work on that

 

[HunterMO]

I think she is doing great. We won't try and make huge changes all at once, hopefully small cues that are easy to fix one at a time! I definitely feel like her hip gets in the way occasionally, and many times she has to throw around it, which makes her pitch go way outside. We will definitely work on that

She looks good. And is mostly there. It’ll come.

It’s not that the hip is in the way when that happens. The arm is just late or behind. Figure out why it’s late and the problem should solve.

Try to look at pitching as a puzzle. Each time you correctly connect a piece the picture becomes more clear.

 

[HasBeenorNeverWas]

Overall she looks pretty good. I am a little concerned about her drive off the rubber, she goes up too much and not out enough. This is usually caused by using the quads for drive and not the glutes. If she can keep her push off foot a little more inline and not turn it out so much that would help. Focusing on keeping the foot-shin angle at 90 degrees and getting on the ball of the foot at push off are also part of it.

I am wondering about her mental approach. When a pitcher has a wild spell, and most young pitchers will get them, there is a tendency to start steering or guiding the ball. The brain can't make the body throw strikes and when it tries it usually makes things worse. "Aim with your eyes and trust your mechanics", that's what I tell them. Try to include some speed work in her practices, have her focus on throwing the ball fast without concern for where it goes, if it's a strike fine, if it's not that's OK too. Tell her to 'let it fly'.

We do tell her to always throw fast. I think she has slowed down a bit recently, but denies it when I ask her lol. Hopefully with all these suggestions she gets back to throwing hard all the time.