Many pitchers contact us to have us instruct them how to throw different pitches. I think its great that they have the desire to be successful; you can’t be unless you know how to keep a hitter off balance.
However, there is a time and a place to learn a different pitch. I won’t teach anyone, regardless of how old they are; how to throw any other pitch unless they can throw with proper mechanics. They also need to show me some consistency hitting spots before we get carried away with additional pitches.
Here are just a few reasons why you shouldn’t attempt to throw off-speed pitches before you can command your fastball and throw it properly:
1) First one is obvious: you are more prone to arm injury
2) If you can’t control your fastball, how can you control another pitch?
3) Poor mechanics lead to poor release of the ball: you can’t get the proper rotation you want with any pitch with a poor release point.
4) With inconsistent timing (rythm), your other pitches will hang or squirt on you. e.g. One day your curveball is spot on and nasty and your next outing you are trying to figure out where your curveball went.
5) If you haven’t put the time and energy learning pitching mechanics, you won’t put in the necessary time to learn how to throw any other pitch correctly. Therefore, you will throw mediocre pitches at best.
Please take the time to learn proper mechanics. You will throw faster, longer and you will prolong the health of your arm. Use these same mechanics to throw all of your other pitches. I hope you had the opportunity to watch yesterdays video. If you haven’t, here it is!
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