Game Ready?

Fall ball is a perfect time to let newbie pitchers enter the circle. If she is practicing regularly (3 or 4 times a week) for a few months, give her the opportunity to pitch. At 10u, its 35 feet with an 11inch ball, so it not that difficult to throw strikes somewhat regularly and the batters are not that well developed and diciplined at the plate either. No kid wants to practice all the time and not get an opportunity to pitch in a game. They will lose interest real fast. The kids that I have seen struggle in the circle at this age are the ones that think they can practice only 30mins a week and think that is good enough. Wrong. IMO, you cannot dabble in pitching, you either commit 100% or find a new position.

as what Rocket said, fall ball is a perfect time to try things out. Doing things during practice is a lot different when on the mound. the pressure, the 'fans', the batter, the noise.
things that will affect your dd. all this your DD can't learn/experience while practicing.

get your DD as much mound time as you can if she likes to pitch.

They are never going to be perfect. SB RULES are setup in such a way that everyone should be able to pitch at some point.

Blow outs one way or another.

Thanks for all the replies.

DD is practicing 2-4 times a week into the net/tarp and then Sunday's is the day that we head to the field to see how the weeks throwing translates to 35 ft. To make Sunday's a little more interesting for her, we have started to keep track of how many balls I catch on the bucket vs how many are not catchable. I am not looking for strikes while doing this, just how many are within reach. She seems to like that and has improved each time that we have done this.

No kid wants to practice all the time and not get an opportunity to pitch in a game. They will lose interest real fast.

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This is currently my biggest fear. There is still over 2 months before fall ball starts. I am brainstorming ways to keep it fresh and exciting for her. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated. If she is anything like me, once she pitches in an actual game, she will be hooked for life and her competitive nature will drive her to succeed. We just need to get through the next few months and get the mechanics as sound as we can to help her succeed when she steps into the circle the first time.

What you really want to know is whether she loves to pitch. Not evey kid wants to be a pitcher, or should be a pitcher.

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This is probably the most important part of getting her into game action, however I feel that it is very important for her to be somewhat successful otherwise frustration may drive her away from pitching.

Some people here disagree with me, shocker there.

Put a to toilet plunger in batting tee then place a beach ball on it. If she hits it, put basketball on it. Then VB.

If she hits it, go down a size. If she misses go up a size.

Do not do it all the time but occasionally it can be fun.

Big thing I went out of it is them throwing ball hard, once they start guiding ball they do not have a chance.

(DD's old pitching coach could knock an 11" ball of tee from 43" everytime,annoying. )

quincy said:

Some people here disagree with me, shocker there.

Put a to toilet plunger in batting tee then place a beach ball on it. If she hits it, put basketball on it. Then VB.

If she hits it, go down a size. If she misses go up a size.

Do not do it all the time but occasionally it can be fun.

Big thing I went out of it is them throwing ball hard, once they start guiding ball they do not have a chance.

(DD's old pitching coach could knock an 11" ball of tee from 43" everytime,annoying. )

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My pitcher loves this game.

To keep it fun and to simulate real game scenarios do a drill I call "pitching sequences". Once she is warmed up pretend there is a batter at the plate and have her pitch to you. She needs to throw 3 strikes before she throws 4 balls, to "strikeout" the batter. If she "walks" someone, you start over. She needs to strikeout 6 batters before she is done with this drill. This drill is great because when she starts getting better control (i.e. can hit all four corners) you can make the game harder. For ex. call fastball inside, next pitch, fastball low and away. When you introduce the change-up in 6 months or so, you can mix that in as well. My DD has done this drill since she was 7YO, she is now 15Yo and we still continue to do this drill and she has not gotten bored with it. They also learn about pitch calling and pitch strategy.

Rocketech1 said:

To keep it fun and to simulate real game scenarios do a drill I call "pitching sequences". Once she is warmed up pretend there is a batter at the plate and have her pitch to you. She needs to throw 3 strikes before she throws 4 balls, to "strikeout" the batter. If she "walks" someone, you start over. She needs to strikeout 6 batters before she is done with this drill. This drill is great because when she starts getting better control (i.e. can hit all four corners) you can make the game harder. For ex. call fastball inside, next pitch, fastball low and away. When you introduce the change-up in 6 months or so, you can mix that in as well. My DD has done this drill since she was 7YO, she is now 15Yo and we still continue to do this drill and she has not gotten bored with it. They also learn about pitch calling and pitch strategy.

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DD always enjoyed this one too. In their mid-teens I’d suggest adding the component of “down the middle” is a base hit and they need to start over.

Rocketech1 said:

To keep it fun and to simulate real game scenarios do a drill I call "pitching sequences". Once she is warmed up pretend there is a batter at the plate and have her pitch to you. She needs to throw 3 strikes before she throws 4 balls, to "strikeout" the batter. If she "walks" someone, you start over. She needs to strikeout 6 batters before she is done with this drill. This drill is great because when she starts getting better control (i.e. can hit all four corners) you can make the game harder. For ex. call fastball inside, next pitch, fastball low and away. When you introduce the change-up in 6 months or so, you can mix that in as well. My DD has done this drill since she was 7YO, she is now 15Yo and we still continue to do this drill and she has not gotten bored with it. They also learn about pitch calling and pitch strategy.

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We did this drill/game once. I noticed as we were doing this that she began to get more focused on throwing strikes than throwing the ball with the proper mechanics, so we have delayed the use of this for the time being. I have not abandoned it forever, but for now I feel that DD and I need to work on getting more consistent and confident with throwing the ball. I think that if we can get to 85% of thrown balls around the plate (is this realistic right now?), this drill will definitely help with learning to throw to spots.

The ball on a tee idea is another one I hadn't thought about before, but believe that I remember it mentioned in other threads. I may look into using that with her. What distance do you recommend that this be done at? 20-25 ft?

Pitching distance, if she is throwing 35 throw 35. There has to be a big enough ball you can put up there she can hit.

(As DD is getting older, 16U now, she does not throw strikes unless she needs to. Always seems to be off the plate)