Fastpitch Catchers
When to throw different pitches? (fastpitch softball)?
i know when to throw a curve and a screw ball but when and how will i know when to throw a change, a rise, a drop, and a curve-drop ball. (im a catcher and my pitcher hits her spots and can throw all of the pitches listed)
Pitching is hard to master, but all you want to do when pitching is confuse that batter, wither by messing up his timing, or messing up his location. So a lot of it will depend on what kind of league you are playing in.
If your playing in a JV league you don’t really want to worry about the curveball and screwball, although it will get a lot of batters out I would highly recommend you stay away from it because it is more important to master a change-up and fastball than to master a curve or screwball and the only way you can master them is by throwing them in a game. So while you are developing your game in JV just concentrate on mastering your fastball and changeup.
Now you don’t want to be able to be read by the batter so just mix it up. Generally you want to throw a fastball that is down the middle for your first pitch. This will allow your batter to time the pitch that is coming, but most of the time the batter won’t swing on the first pitch and you can get an easy strike. Now you can just vary the speed of the pitch each time, so just tell you pitcher that she should just change up the speed when she is pitching. Now thats all there is to speed of the pitch
Now you have to think about location of the pitch. Location depends strictly on the count. If youre up in the count try to throw something thats near the edge or out of the strikezone, that will be hard ofr the batter to hit. These will be counted as balls, but you are ahead in the count so it won’t really matter, and you will probably get lucky and have the batter swing on a pitch that is outside the strikezone. If your behind in the count throw a nice accurate pitch that is called as a strike, but remember to mess up the batters timing so he can’t hit it.
If your’e at the VARISITY level you’ll want to incorporate a curvball and screwball, but do so wisely. Again follow all the rules of thumb I told you to follow at the JV level just if you’re ahead in the count throw a curveball that may get the batter to swing. and if youre behind in the count throw an accurate fastball or changeup.. And mix it up whenver you can. It’s pretty simple once you get the hang of it.
Also just watch the majors and see how they do it, You’ll learn a lot
Good Luck