7 year old pitching

Question
We live in a small town and my son is seven years old and loves baseball. His age group didnt have enough players to have a machine pitch league so he was moved up to play minor league. Minor league consist of players that are mostly 9 and 10 year old but can be 7 or 8. To my surprise he was the best pitcher on the team as a 7 year old. He has pitched in about 5 games already and has done surprisingly well considering he is pitching against older kids. However, I have recently become concerned that he may be too young to be pitching. What would you suggest. I am afraid that if he continues to pitch at such a young age he could hurt his arm and not be able to do well when he is older. At this point if I take him all the way out of the pitching role he would be hurting the team as well. How many pitches per game or week should he be limited too or is he just too young???  

Answer
Hi Brent,

have you talked to his coach about this?  I agree he is young to be pitching but it seems he has talent and he's having fun.  

Is your son complaining about a sore arm?  At his age, I would be surprised if he was throwing true fastballs.  It's fastballs that can cause the real damage quickly.  Curve and knuckleballs can too but they are best left to pitchers when they reach the age of 13 and 14 (in my opinion).

I would think a 7 year old would be just throwing accurate pitchs and not serious fastballs.  The coach should never use the same pitcher for back-to-back games.  If this is the case, you can raise your concerns.  

In our league, if a pitcher is used for 3 or more innings, he cannot pitch for the following game.  This is a pretty good rule and you may suggest this.  Especially for such a young age.  

Make sure your son's arm is warmed up slowly before he pitches and to keep his arm warm between innings (light jacket on pitching arm).  He should never pitch when he is sore and should be free to tell his coach this without reproach.

I would not worry about the team.  If your child is a good pitcher, I'm sure the coach will agree to slowly build his pitching ability.  

That's quite impressive to read about a 7 year old pitching so well.  Bravo.  I would think the coach would carefully nurture this talent.  Make sure he understands your concerns but don't pull the boy from the team.  It's not the team you'll hurt - you said yourself, your son loves baseball.  Most kids his age are just learning to throw let alone throwing with accuracy.

I just hope the coach is showing him the proper techniques of warming up, ball grip, stance, follow-thru and glove safety.  IF this is so, you can rest your fears.

As for setting limits, ask your son.  How many innings can he pitch before he gets tired.  If your son is above average in his growth, it can be difficult to evaluate.  As soon as his accuracy drops, that's the time to change.

I would think 2 to 3 innings would be a good limit (max), hopefully there are other pitchers available to use. For those games where he pitches more innings, you'd have to carefully watch to see if he starts to hurt and he should not pitch the following game (or at least one week rest).

I hope this helps.

Regards,

JohnMc