Hitting a curve or drop ball

Question
My daughter's 16-U AAU coach has been instructing the players to move up in the batters box inorder to hit a curveball or drop ball before the ball breaks.  I am a former college baseball player and know that this is not the case in baseball.  Is this instruction correct?

Answer
Hello Robert

There is a science applied and many fast pitch softball batting coaches teach moving up in the box for pitchers that have good ball movement, more so for rise balls and drop balls than a good curve which isn't as common in fastpitch softball.

As a softball pitching coach I can attest when pitching a softball from 40 feet away it抯 difficult to pitch the ball so breaks in front of the plate as opposed to over the plate. However college fast pitch softball pitchers with good ball movement seem to have more success pitching at the 43 feet college distance so that extra 3 feet seems to really help.

I can also imagine that the dynamics of pitching a softball underhanded from 40 feet is much different than pitching a baseball overhand from 60 feet.