Well, you have been pitching for a long time!! You have a full wind-up that by the nature of its delivery is hard to pick up from the batters box. On average you strike out 7-9 against hard teams and between 11-15 on some of the weaker teams. You are hitting your spots on command, have great control, have four pitches that are thrown with accuracy, velocity topping out at 87 mph. Your best pitch is your fastball because you have it either tailing in, jamming those batters, or out, having the batter extending their arms to reach the outside pitch!! With a little variation of a wider positioning of the fingers, a slight drop off at the end like a spit finger!! The movement of the fastball becomes the out pitch for you!! You have an outstanding curve ball, it is more of an "over the top", most coaches tell you it it one of the best curves they have seen!! Your slider, is also a great pitch but is probably your weakest!!
Well, you have done well, been recruited by the school that you were dreaming on going to!! The coach recruits you and it is the beginning of your first "one on one" workout with the pitching coach, the first words out of his mouth are "lose that windup".
Your control spins out for the first couple of weeks but you do become average at the stretch!! You never really recover the command that you had with the full wind up but continue to throw as the pitching coach instructs because the coach is, "the coach"!! You go to your first inter-team game and are called in to see what you can do!! The first few pitches are uncomfortable and are a little off the mark but you still get two of the 3 outs by put outs when the ball is trickled back to you. When You head back in for the next inning you realize that you can strike out the next batter with ease if you can just pitch your old way, it is the teams best hitter, a senior, a player that has done nothing but disc you since you walked on to the field!! You decide to switch to your old pitching wind-up!! You make the batter look silly with two wiffs at over the top curve balls and then a high heat fastball tailing out at eyelevel!! The batter slams the bat in the ground and stomps back to the dugout!!! A personal victory, yet you know there will be "heck" to pay later. For the entire rest of the outting, nothing but changeups are called by the coach!! His point being made!! You only pitch the way I tell you to pitch!!! Besides running as fast as you can, for as long as the coach deems is necessary for disipline, what is your next step in your training and how should you appoach the control issue???
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