In today’s video blog post, we’re talking about pitching drills that gives your pitchers an opportunity to work on presetting every pitch. Presetting the pitch is not something that you want to do in a game, because it is strictly used for skillbuilding. The pitcher will work on presetting the fastball, the curve ball and the change-up, as well as the split finger if your pitcher throws it.
Skillbuilding Pitching Drills: Presetting the Pitch
The biggest problem that young pitchers have, is that when they break their hand – no matter how they grip the ball – they have trouble finding the right angle for releasing the ball. For this reason, you want to be sure that you preset the specific pitch appropriately, come out of the glove as that pitch, and deliver the pitch as you intended.
You may be surprised at how you can make the ball move. You can easily make a ball move 30 feet if you release it right out in front. One of the benefits of releasing the baseball out in front is that, for every one foot of distance in release point, it’s 3 mph to the hitter’s eyes. There is also later movement. If you can release the baseball closer to home plate, the hitter has less time to read it, the ball is going to move later and there is less stress on your arm. All three of these things are going to help you as a pitcher.
If you are following all of the proper mechanics, and when you pitch, the ball squirts above the fast ball plane, you want to squeeze the ball a little harder/tighter – no matter what grip you are using.
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