National Pitching Association West

Monday Mechanics Minute: Pitching Posture - There is no one correct set posture for all pitchers. Your hip/spine relationship (posture) is determined by your own delivery. Some need to start their delivery in a more upright posture. Others need to be more bent over. To determine your correct starting posture, watch what your body does when you start your delivery. If you move your head up or down prior to moving forward you need to adjust your posture accordingly.

Monday Mechanics Minute: Narrow or Wide Stance? - We’ve found that using a narrower stance helps guys with their timing to the plate vs a wide set position. When guys come set too wide, they tend to rock back before going forward towards the plate. This causes timing to slow down and direction to the plate to vary from pitch to pitch. Even if they are able to move forward right away, they create less momentum due to the shorter distance from set position to footstrike. Try narrowing your stance at set position and taking your body directly towards home and you’ll feel the difference in energy and velocity coming out of your hand.

Monday Mechanics Minute: Hip Forward Fast - When starting your delivery it is important to get that front hip moving forward FAST towards the target. It does the following things: Generates more forward momentum Creates better ground reaction force at footstrike (to send more energy up the chain) Keeps your center of gravity on line towards the target Increases your stride length... Your release point will be farther out front Don’t forget to use your leg lift. NO SLIDE STEP! If you do this you’ll see an increase in velocity with less effort and strain your arm! See more

Monday Mechanics Minute: Tunneling - How consistently you release your pitches is an important aspect of disguising what pitch you are throwing. Ideally you will release all of your pitches from the same spot and each pitch will travel through the same initial 4 foot tunnel before heading on different trajectories towards the zone. However, if your curveball and fastball, for example, are released from different spots, good hitters subconsciously pick this up and will know what pitch is coming before they even need to read spin. Don’t let this happen to you. Each pitch you throw should look the same coming out of your hands. Only your grip and wrist angle will be different depending on the pitch you’re throwing.

Monday Mechanics Minute: Work from the Set/Stretch - When I work with guys, I always practice from the set or stretch position. This is for two main reasons: First, most pitchers will throw about 70% of their pitches from the stretch (w/ runners on base). Second, all of the important pitches come when throwing from the set/stretch because runners are on base. If you can master throwing from the set position, throwing from the wind-up is easy. So always practice from the stretch, then finish up with a few pitches from the wind-up.

Monday Mechanics Minute: Don’t Slide Step! - Most coaches teach the slide step because they are trying to get pitchers to speed their delivery to home (to stop the running game). Unfortunately, the slide step forces pitchers to use primarily their arm to generate velocity adding more stress to it. They will also throw with less movement and velocity on the ball. To avoid this trap, pitchers should use their leg lift, just make sure they start moving their hip towards the target as soon as leg lift begins. You get the benefits of being quick to home, AND you’ll use your lower half to help generate your power and velocity.