pitching a baseball

Question
Hi i was wondering, does practice pitching with a rubber ball help your pitching command or does it just throw you off. I know, it won't have the same rotation as a real baseball. I usually draw myself a strike zone an pitch the rubber ball. Do you have any advice? Thanks

Answer
Hi Chris.

Pitching command is more about correct mechanics than the type of ball you throw.

The ball issue would be more about being lighter, which can cause some problems with your arm, especially if you are throwing hard.

It sounds like you are off to a good start to draw a strike zone.  If you can throw into a screen, you can use baseballs and not tear them up.  If you are throwing at a wall, try incrediballs or some other safety type ball, you get the seams and they are less expensive to replace.

There are commercial, portable screens that have a strike zone painted on them, some even have a batter and are reversible, so that you get a left and right handed batter.  The cost varies.  Both baseballexpress.com and masa.com have some of these.  I am sure there are many others as well.

It would be a good idea to shorten the distance you throw, as the goal would be to increase your accuracy through the mastering of your mechanics, which happens through quality repetitions.  If you throw on a 45 foot mound,shorten your distance to 25 feet.  If you throw on a 60 foot mound, shorten to 35 feet.  More quality reps, less arm stress.

Try using different colored tapes to mark locations around the strike zone that you want to focus on, say red for fastballs and yellow for changeups.  As you feel comfortable with each location, move those marks, or add new ones, to increase your skills and focus.

Once you have a good feel for getting one pitch consistently where you want it, throw the workout as a game and keep a count on each hitter, either a strike out or walk, and whatever number of innings you want to throw.  That way you can start thinking about pitch sequences and how you want to set hitters up.

Hitting is all about timing ~ Pitching is the disruption of that timing.  The best pitch in baseball is STRIKE ONE.  As a pitcher, work quickly, throw a strike in the first two pitches, change speeds, never throw the same pitch at the same speed, in the same location two times in a row.  Sacrifice velocity for location.

If you look on my website ~ www.theoleballgame.com, click on hitting, scroll down to Proven Team Hitting Approach.  Within that page is a section titled 2007 team splits by counts.  While this page is about hitting, these counts will give you good insight into why it is important to throw strikes and get ahead.

I don't know how old you are, but I would suggest you stay with fastball/changeup, at least until you get to high school.  Let your body develop.

I saw Pedro Martinez, in an ALCS game, strike out a hitter with 3 consecutive changeups, all at progressively slower speeds and different locations.  The hitter never swung the bat.  That is the art of pitching.  Strikes, location, change speeds.  You can live inside the hitters head.

Good luck in you baseball endeavors.

Yours in baseball,

Rick