Low and Away

How is his stride direction? Is he throwing across his body? What side of the mound does he throw from?

I would say that his stride direction is good and does not throw across his body. He throws from the right side of the rubber.

Not necessarily; it might stem from the pitcher having lack of confidence in his control and/or a ingrained reluctance to throw inside out of fear that he might hit the batter. I've seen this from certain pitchers--especially those that have been hit themselves.

You have a point slotty. The other mental issue might also be that he might be afraid of giving up hits. Some times you have to trust your stuff and throw to contact.

Some others will jump in here. For my son he has the opposite problem in that he has a tendency to open up and miss up-and-in when this happens.

Definitely the mental part of throwing inside could be part of it but during his stride does he tend to float off that line into the right handed hitter and then land correctly? Many righthanders tend to do this and then suffer with their location. Also is his pivot foot squared and how are his shoulders coming through (flat, diagonal) the throwing motion?

Does he also tend to miss up when he goes in? If so, it is probably opening early.

Up and in doesn't seem to be a problem. At release he is up on his back toe and it's square to the plate, with slightly tilted shoulders.I have noticed he he crossing over his right leg on his follow thru. Based on the comments it could be pitch selection, instead of always trying to back door a two seamer he might have to start going inside to a RH hitter, but at the D1 level that's usually death.

quote:

Originally posted by BB27:
I would say that his stride direction is good and does not throw across his body. He throws from the right side of the rubber.

Have you tried adjusting position on the rubber?

Try adjusting his position on the rubber. If hes a righty i would suggest moving to the middle but no further than that. Moving to the 1st base side of the rubber as a righty can make it real difficult to throw effective breaking pitches and batters tend to pick up pitches earlier.

It could also be a mental thing as well, hard to tell with out any video.

I also know for myself when I miss low it is typically because im rushing. When i stay back a split second longer i get more velocity and rarely miss low.

He may be working side to side and not back to front. Meaning that once his front foot hits the ground his front side should remain on the catcher as long as possible and his back side should work to his front side. My guess is that his front side is too quick and he is running away from his arm, so to speak or spinning off of the pitch.

Try setting the catcher up opposite armside (edge of the plate should center the catcher) and back the catcher up about 5 feet and ask him to drive it thru the catcher. By backing the catcher up it will often force the pitcher to stay on the ball longer and he will tend to do what we want him to do which is work back to front not side to side. In his mind we would like him to think about throwing it farther not harder.