Pitching question

[riseball]

If you throw a good IR/BI fastball it will have somewhere near 1/7 rotation and will break down and in to a RHB. Get your fingers outside the ball and you get 11/5 that will run away from a RHB. If you have high velocity 65+ and 25+ spin it can be very effective. If you orient the seams to provide an imbalance you can get some significant movement.

 

[riseball]

Olympic Pitcher Michelle Granger was wild and affective.
However hard for most pitchers to reproduce 70mph+
Speed with eratic spin.
That went everywhere!

IME with the advances in training and recent rule changes 70 is becoming the new 65.

 

[radness]

If you throw a good IR/BI fastball it will have somewhere near 1/7 rotation and will break down and in to a RHB. Get your fingers outside the ball and you get 11/5 that will run away from a RHB. If you have high velocity 65+ and 25+ spin it can be very effective. If you orient the seams to provide an imbalance you can get some significant movement.

Now theres distinction!
Recall you posting about previously.

 

[riseball]

Now theres distinction!
Recall you posting about previously.

Like the game, pitching is simple. Some coaches earn a living convincing people it is complicated.

 

[hummingbird]

My 10U pitcher has the exact opposite problem.
Can hit her spots about 70% of the time, rarely wild, but just can't get her to pitch beyond 40mph..
Her velocity last year was only a few MPH less than it is now, although she's definitely gained accuracy since we switched to IR last year.

 

[riseball]

My 10U pitcher has the exact opposite problem.
Can hit her spots about 70% of the time, rarely wild, but just can't get her to pitch beyond 40mph..
Her velocity last year was only a few MPH less than it is now, although she's definitely gained accuracy since we switched to IR last year.

Give it time. Stay focused on mechanics and the speed will come. There will be a day when she catches the whip and everything will click.

 

[sluggers]

First, @RADcatcher, I understand you called for different pitches during a game. The question is whether the pitchers actually threw different pitches.

Funny post Sluggers! Comparing a sport that shuffles 6 pitchers a game per team.

Baseball: A starting pitcher goes 6 or 7 innings, followed by several relief pitchers.
Softball: Starting pitcher goes 7 innings.

Yeah, I can see the huge difference between the two sports...

By the by, Bob Gibson had 255 complete games pitching against the greatest hitters in the world. I can point you to the interview with Gibson and McCarver where they agreed that Gibson threw two pitches...a fastball and a screwball. (Note that a screwball in baseball is simply a pitch with a corkscrew spin.)

Interesting are you saying pitchers should only have 2 pitches?
( dont think you are recommending that?)

To me, "pitches" are breaking pitches. I don't count changeups as a pitch....every pitcher needs an off-speed pitcher. It doesn't necessarily need to be a changeup, but the pitcher has to be able to change speeds.

For 99% of the softball pitchers it is impossible to "have" more than a changeup, fastball and one movement pitch. Their careers end at 22 or 23YOA. There just isn't enough time to get good with a bunch of different pitches.

To be clear, what I mean by "having a breaking pitch" is that the pitcher can get the pitch to move 95% of the time and can locate the pitch. If a pitcher can't throw a breaking pitch on 3-2 count with a runner on 3rd in the bottom of the 7th, then she really doesn't know how to throw the pitch. (Throwing a breaking pitch with your team up 8-0 doesn't really matter, does it?)

Certainly recognize its extremely common for fastpitch to throw at least 4 different pitches.

No, it isn't. The only pitcher with four different pitches is Osterman. Other than her, there is a lot of show and no go.

Turn down the volume and watch the CWS. Where are all the pitches? Where is the movement? Where are the different spins? A pitcher will have either a rise or a drop, but not both

The most common pitch is a bulletspin pitch. Watch Rachel Garcia in 2019 CWS. Where was her drops? Where her curveballs?

Super slow motion has shredded what people thought they knew about pitching.

And/plus
Have more than one type of change up.

Again, where are all of these different change ups at the CWS?

Rise- some prefer screw

Teaching screwballs is the biggest con game in town.

I offered $500 a few years ago for someone to show me a video of screwball spin (3-6 or 6-3 spin) during a game. After two years, I still had the $500.

Curve

Unlike a screwball, it is possible to throw a curve. But, again, there aren't thrown very often games. There are a lot of drop curves.

*Would much rather have a moving pitch in the mix (or rather not throw a straight least moving pitch fastball)

And I would rather have my unquestionably amazing good lucks *AND* 100 million dollars. But, I've had to make due with only one for years.

Fastballs in fastpitch are the straight pitch beginning pitchers use to find the strikezone. However when batters learn and become competitive,
fastballs become base hits and home runs. Pitchers need more than change or fastball that batters will look for and crush.

Not this old saw again...

Slow motion video has shredded what people thought they knew about softball pitching. Watch the CWS...plug up your ears so you don't hear Michelle Smith babbling, and then look at the pitches. You'll see pitchers who move the ball around the edge of the strike zone.

 

[radness]

Absolutely glad i know pitches move! Always encourage catchers to train with upper level pitchers! Prepare for the next level!
Thats a post in a seperate discussion thread!

Lots of change up options grips methods....
Smart to work out with them and find what works best!
No not all pitchers throw the same one.
Yes many have more than one style.


Ps old saw, you brought it out of the wood shed...... Hey as long as your gonna bring up mlb pro players when talking about fastpitch....might as well distinguish the differences!

 

[radness]

Good look at pitch reviews.

Maintenance Page - Softball Excellence - Softball Training Anywhere

 

[ArmWhip]

Since there was no live softball the networks replayed a lot of old games, from their conferences and the CWS. I recorded and replayed most of them. I saw a lot of bulletspin pitches from a variety of pitchers, including Rachel Garcia. There's video of Jennie Finch and Yukiko Ueno throwing bulletspin. We all know that bulletspin doesn't break so it would seem that a lot of pitchers throw pitches that don't move. Are these 'fastballs'?

I saw video of Garcia throwing a change, rollover curve and bulletspin 'riseball', didn't see any good slo-mo of a drop.