Pitcher Excellent

17 Jul, 2004 in art pottery by admin

Pitcher Excellent

Train Your Pitchers with These Softball Pitching Drills

When you look at a softball game closely, you’ll realize how important the role of the pitcher is in your game. Although your good batters score for your team, your pitcher needs to balance that by preventing the other team from scoring.

That’s why it’s also important that you constantly drive your pitchers to do better. The more accurate and varied their pitches are, the more difficult it will be for opposing batters to hit the ball. So here are some softball pitching drills that will help improve your pitcher’s skills.

Football Toss

This drill’s purpose is to teach or develop your pitcher’s correct ball-rise release.

To do the football toss, you let your pitcher throw a mid-sized ball to a partner. In throwing the ball, the pitcher should place her fingers along the seams and the thumb on the opposite side. The ball should spin when thrown at the catcher. If it wobbles, it means that the pitcher threw it with the palm facing her partner.

Wrist Snapping Drill

An excellent drill for developing wrist snap, it does its job by isolating the wrist throughout the exercise.

This is done by partners facing each other and around 10 ft. apart. If right handed, the pitcher should bend the right knee and kneel on the left knee. The pitching arm is fixed on the leg while holding the ball under the knee. She then flips the ball into the air to her partner who catches it and does the same.

Fielding Bunts

One of the most critical situations for pitchers is when a batter bunts a ball. That’s because the bunted ball is most likely to fall in the pitcher’s proximity.

To train for these situations, position your pitcher on the mound and a player on the 1st or 2nd base or both. Then toss the ball towards the mound to simulate a bunt. The pitcher should then throw the ball to the first base. Let the pitcher return to the mound and repeat the drill.

In doing this drill, also remind your pitcher to set her feet towards the base where she’s most likely to throw the ball.

Throwing to Bases

Since she is situated in the middle of the field, the pitcher should also practice throwing the ball to bases.

In this drill, the pitcher should be accompanied by players on every base and a hitter. The hitter fungos the ball to the pitcher who then practices throwing the ball at every base. This should be done at least 10 times for each base including the home plate.

There you have it, different drills to help train your pitchers. That should be enough to keep you and your pitchers busy for the next few weeks. Make sure you repeat these drills over and over until your pitchers perfect them.

For more softball pitching drills and other softball tips, check out my website at www.softballperformance.com. See you there!

About the Author

Marc Dagenais, MHK, CSCS, is a Softball Peak Performance Coach that helps softball players and teams hit with more power, run faster, throw harder, become mentally tougher and be more dominant on the softball field.

Zack Greinke's future?

Greinke has a contract in KC through 2012 and he has proved himself as a excellent pitcher. So, what is he still doing in KC? Do they really think they have a shot to win a world series with him? Why aren't they trying to trade him and test the market? I could see the Yankees and Red Sox passing on Halladay to go after Greinke. Greinke's younger so you get more if you trade some young prospects.

Do you think that KC might consider trading him? And if they do where do you think he'll go to?
The only reason Greinke was bad in the past was because of the team he was on. His ERA was always decent, but he lost a lot because of the KC lineup

What I've heard of Greinke (from an interview with George Brett who let him live at his house for quite some time) is that he's a different kind of person. He comes across as someone who's shy and introverted in a way that says he would Never be able to handle the kind of enormous pressure that comes with the expectation of winning on big market ballclubs. With that in mind, I don't see why he wouldn't choose to remain in Kansas City and hope for the winds of change to fortune the Royals someday soon.
Personally I had forecast a much stronger showing from them before the start of the '09 campaign and then they began as though they were going to fulfill that very thing in the AL Central. Who knows maybe they'll have grown some more into a contender for next season.

Mikala Huebner Pitcher Softball Skills Video