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I had to learn to pitch inside on the fly in college. It is absolutely necessary. Back before the aluminum bats were nerfed, it was scary to go inside on a 6'4 230 pound cleanup hitter leading the league in dingers. I was never scared of hitting people. When I was younger, I used to intentionally throw hard ones near batters to back them off the plate to set up breaking balls away or to get a little advantage with an outside fastball. If I hit them, so be it.

 

I had decent velocity but not even close to overpowering. I lived off location and a plus breaking ball. I quickly learned in college, I could paint the outside corner all day, and I could throw my breaking ball all day, but if I stayed there, they were just going to hit soft liners and hard grounders that found holes all day. In the event I missed location and elevated it, those turned into opposite field gappers, balls flying past my head, and sometimes four baggers.

 

I'd say it took me about a year to fully grasp that I needed to pitch inside with purpose, rather than just a show me pitch when needed. It honestly ended up being one of my best weapons on the mound. Guys in my leagues knew I had a big curve and that was my pitch. If they didn't know, they saw it in warmups. Someone above mentioned they don't like that pitch on 0-2 and 1-2, but that's when I most often used mine because that is when they thought the hook was coming and were sitting back and/or leaning to cover the outer half.I pitched backwards a lot. I'd show them backwards and then gave them what they thought was coming the first time. A lot of frozen called strikes and a lot of lazy popups. In wood bat leagues, I was breaking a lot of bats. It is amazing watching someone like Tom Glavine, who even in old age and deteriorating velocity came inside like a bull dog and dudes most times had no chance.

Last edited by RGDeuce

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