how much do you open? 45 or 90 degrees?

[pdj]

Fingers

BLB - I have seen very few ladies pitch that use the fingers as an effective spin producer. Every pitching instructor should catch a male pitcher at least once, in my experience the males spin the ball tighter by using finger pressure. Another real eye opener is to watch an elite male pitcher in warmups.

Less stress on the body, more break, multiple pitches with the same grip and the pitch is harder for the batter to pick.

I do like a wrist snap, in my view it produces a more effective whip to power the ball. As I want to use the fingers, and not the elbow, shoulder or step, to spin the ball the wrist movement is important.

 

[BLB]

Even better than catching a male pitcher who has a good rise ball and a good drop ball is to have been such a pitcher. In your experience as a pitcher, you never felt that the fingers contributed a great deal to throwing a good rise ball? That surprises me. You threw it different than I did.

 

[pdj]

Fingers

BLB - Guess I did not make myself clear. The fingers are everything the way I teach, especially the pointing finger. The best riseball, for me anyway, is with the pointing finger knuckled up. However I like to show the kids how to throw a drop curve, rise and cut fastball from a grip around the horse shoe without knuckling up.

Many girls have been taught to slip the hand off of the ball to get spin. The "water in the hand" riseball is an example. For my money I want to still have the speed of the grip and impart spin with finger movement. On the drop I prefer a finger movement rather than an elbow and shoulder movement.

In my almost 50 years in the game I have had to change my mind on several things. My preference to use the fingers to impart spin has not changed. Though, before this year, Mata did make me think that there may be something to the turnover.