game footage progress/anaylsis please

[catchermom13]

Hi gang,

got some live footage from a scrimmage a couple weeks ago. The three pitches I captured happened to be change up, change up, rise ball. The flip change has been very effective but does come in high at times. Can anyone give thoughts about that? Release point maybe? Any comments about form on the rise also would be appreciated. The quick jerk towards third at the end is her attempt at "coming up the front of the barrel". This is a work in progress as the spin tends to be mostly bullet spin. I slowed each pitch way down in the first clip to show hand/ball position. Thanks![video=youtube_share;z9iRBQGfBHY]http://youtu.be/z9iRBQGfBHY[/video]

 

[Doug Romrell]

I like her look doing the riseball (last pitch) best. What kind of ball rotation is she getting. I'm guessing from her release that it's cork-screwing just a bit. It will be interesting to hear from others.

 

[catchermom13]

Hi Doug is there a difference between cork-screw spin and bullet spin? It's definitely not coming in as 12-6 backspin so I assumed it was bullet.

 

[Doug Romrell]

Hi Doug is there a difference between cork-screw spin and bullet spin? It's definitely not coming in as 12-6 backspin so I assumed it was bullet.

For me, cork-screw and bullet spin are the same.

I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a riseball that is 12-6 backspin. If it's more back-spin than bullet-spin, she's doing pretty good (I think).

 

[Jojo]

Catchermom, she looks really good.

To keep her change-up down, she'll need to make sure she's keeping that release near the back leg, the backhand doesn't want to be "helped" to make it look good. There may be times where she doesn't feel like she's pushed hard enough with it, or maybe doesn't trust it to make it, so there can be some reaching out. So just focus on the release near the back leg and not allowing the shoulder to follow through to far forward.

For the rise, she gets into the release position well, I'd like to see her get under the ball even sooner, right around 9:00.
It's hard for me to see but it looks like right before release she gets behind the ball slightly back to fastball, then tries to "get under and up the back" which I can see would make a bullet spin. I call cork-screw and bullet the same thing as well.

When I teach the rise, I teach staying inside the ball, and I teach down and under. I don't teach trying to come up the front side.

I hope she is working on her leap as well.

 

[catchermom13]

Thanks for the input Jojo. We watched the video again together and she totally understands getting that flip release down earlier. She also mentioned while watching that she should stay open more with it. Nice to see she can pick out flaws on her own now! And yes she really gets air born on that first pitch - it was a scrimmage and there was no rubber so I'll cut her some slack there

 

[Sparky Guy]

On the flip change, one of the things I tell my pitchers is to throw the bottom of the ball out through their target with their fingertips. A lot of times the pitchers have the thought process that they are trying to throw the front of the ball through the target. They'll tend to want to lockup the wrist trying to pull the ball through the release point causing it to go high.