Pitching Baseball Drills – 3 Inning Game Simulation

Here are pitching baseball drills I use to try to develop the skills of my pitchers.  The 2 primary objectives are to improve endurance and enhance their ability to locate pitches.

I have them throw off of a mound, usually the warm-up pitchers mound because my assistant baseball coaches are using the baseball field for batting or fielding practice when I am working with my next-game starting pitcher on the side.

I ask him to throw a simulated game for 3 innings.  He pitches to the number of batters necessary to record 3 strikeouts per inning.  In other words, if he walks one batter in a given inning, he’d have to face (pretending of course) 4 batters instead of 3 to record three outs.  The maximum number of simulated at bats is 12.  I have a batter stand at the plate with a bat, BUT HE IS NOT ALLOWED TO SWING AT THE BALL.

The goal is to throw a strike on every pitch.  However, we work on developing the ability to hit spots.  I call the location, and the pitcher has to try to hit that spot.  I might say “heart of the plate at the knees” or “outside corner at the letters”.  We get them to throw up and down, in and out.

After they have thrown a simulated baseball game for 3 innings, I let them face 3 – 5 batters in live batting practice.  By this time, the pitcher is ramped up pretty good.

It helps our batters because they are facing “game speed” pitches, and it helps our pitchers because they get to test out the art of locating pitches which they would have been practicing on the side.

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Category: Baseball Pitching Drills, Baseball Training