Hitting the riseball

Chris Delorit · May 15, 2017

Hi Lickety,

Take from it what you will.

Even FFS was nice enough to dig through her/his favorite video collection for you. Now, that's personalized service!

Best,
Chris

Westwind · May 15, 2017

sluggers said:
FFS is right about this.

A riseball is an easy pitch to hit *IF* (1) the batter knows the rise is coming and (2) the batter has proper discipline.

The attached image is the flight path of a riseball in the women's game. This graph comes from a NASA program simulating softball pitching. (The graph for the men's game is slightly different.)

Note that the riseball flight path is *FLAT* as it goes over the plate. So, hitting the rise is simple:

1) A batter needs to know the pitch is coming. The rise swing is flatter than a normal swing. The batter has to adjust the path of the swing to match the plane of the ball at the plate.
2) A batter needs to understand what a rise looks like. If a batter hasn't seen enough rises, they will be surprised by the pitch. Even though a rise does not actually "jump", it looks like it jumps. (It is an amazing illusion.)
3) A batter needs a level swing at the top of the strike zone.
4) A batter needs to lay off pitches above the strike zone. A batter can't hit any pitch that is too high, including a rise.

Awesome post.

FiveFrameSwing · May 16, 2017

sluggers said:
FFS is right about this.

A riseball is an easy pitch to hit *IF* (1) the batter knows the rise is coming and (2) the batter has proper discipline.

The attached image is the flight path of a riseball in the women's game. This graph comes from a NASA program simulating softball pitching. (The graph for the men's game is slightly different.)

Note that the riseball flight path is *FLAT* as it goes over the plate. So, hitting the rise is simple:

1) A batter needs to know the pitch is coming. The rise swing is flatter than a normal swing. The batter has to adjust the path of the swing to match the plane of the ball at the plate.
2) A batter needs to understand what a rise looks like. If a batter hasn't seen enough rises, they will be surprised by the pitch. Even though a rise does not actually "jump", it looks like it jumps. (It is an amazing illusion.)
3) A batter needs a level swing at the top of the strike zone.
4) A batter needs to lay off pitches above the strike zone. A batter can't hit any pitch that is too high, including a rise.

Some good points.

Regarding the bold portion above .... assuming that a batter uses their vision correctly, then the riseball WILL NOT appear to jump. Those that use a hard focus may perceive the ball to jump ... those that use a relaxed open focus will not be fooled and will not see the ball jump.

FiveFrameSwing · May 16, 2017

If you want to hit a riseball that is thrown for a strike, then perfect your hand path.

There are no short-cuts in this regard.

In my teaching I treat hand-path as the third most important portion of the swing to be mastered.

corlay · May 16, 2017

daave266 said:
Isn't the Riseball considered to be a chase pitch most of the time? I remember Mike White of Oregon telling his girls the best way to combat a Riseball is to not swing? Based on that, I'm going to presume that a great number of these end of out of the strike zone, so if you can lay off of it, it's in your favor.

not true at all.

Good riseball pitchers like K.Barnhill (FLA), A.Orsorio (ALA), C.Wilkinson (GA '16) can locate their riseball at all levels,
including at the knees.

Thrown low in the zone, the pitch exhibits more perceptual "float" than "jump",
but batters still miss under it, or pop it up, or it just flat-out freezes them...

Chris Delorit · May 16, 2017

daave26,

Sure, a rise certainly can be considered a chase pitch. It depends on your mental black book, what's working for the pitcher & your ability to hit that particular pitch. I can't speak for Mike, but his hypothetical can work in a perfect world scenario where the rise moves through a high zone plane. The reality is that pitch can be thrown throughout the entire strike zone, and pitchers can miss their release & make mistakes with location. There are also bad-ball hitters who can handle those balls outside of the strike zone.

So, if you want a good pitch to drive, especially teach your kids to hit that pitch.

corlay,

Your spot on. To your list of results, just don't forget to consider...orbital launching.

Chris

corlay · May 17, 2017

Chris Delorit said:
Your spot on. To your list of results, just don't forget to consider...orbital launching.

Ha! true.

I think that if you have a pitcher that mainly features the riseball,
you enjoy greater K's, at the expense of greater BB's, and an occasional HR.

Il softball fan · May 17, 2017

corlay said:
not true at all.

Good riseball pitchers like K.Barnhill (FLA), A.Orsorio (ALA), C.Wilkinson (GA '16) can locate their riseball at all levels,
including at the knees.

Thrown low in the zone, the pitch exhibits more perceptual "float" than "jump",
but batters still miss under it, or pop it up, or it just flat-out freezes them...

I acutally agree with both you and daave26. A lot of riseball pitchers that I have personally seen do use the riseball as a throw away/chase kind of pitch when batters have two strikes and are willing to swing more freely. Most of those pitches would def be balls if not swung at. The good ones like corlay says, can throw them for strikes and still get misses. If the pitcher can not or will not throw them low enough to be in the strike zone, then getting batters to lay off of them is def a great strategy until they bring them down.

Chaz McNulty · May 17, 2017

I think this is a very difficult pitch to hit in the women's game, because there are so few good riseball pitchers. I believe you have to throw 60-65 mph plus before you start to see good results with this pitch. Because the batters are not seeing the pitch on a continuous basis, it is very difficult to become adept at hitting it (a little like when the change up is first introduced in U12 or U10).

In the men's game you see the riseball constantly and you can detect the spin after a while. I used to recognize it from big white circle in the middle of the ball. I almost subconsciously would lay off of it and sure enough it ends up out of the zone. This took a couple years of constantly seeing this pitch.

If I was sitting on the riseball I would move up slightly in the box and stand tall as the pitcher was coming through. I would try to swing through the top of the ball. But if it was any other pitch you would end up way over top.

wave_twister · May 17, 2017

daave266 said:
Isn't the Riseball considered to be a chase pitch most of the time? I remember Mike White of Oregon telling his girls the best way to combat a Riseball is to not swing? Based on that, I'm going to presume that a great number of these end of out of the strike zone, so if you can lay off of it, it's in your favor.

On other occasions the riseball is thrown as a presentation pitch or setup for the next pitch. This comes with knowing your pitcher who is on the mound and if she throws them or not. For people like me who live in a small area (Hawaii) then yeah you have a great ability to know your opposing pitchers.

But yeah, just swing flatter and hard as hell if you go on it. Sluggers has a great picture illustrating the path.

Hitting the riseball

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