Has anyone had their kid go through a case of the "yips"? I'm especially interested in any pitchers who have experienced it?
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Mine went through it at catcher throwing it back to the pitcher. It sucked. We started a count where it was knee to the ground one, ball up 2, throw 3. It lasted about a month, IIRC and he got out of it. If your son is going through it I wish you the best. It was hard on us to watch it and 10x harder on him going through it.
Yep. Started 3 years ago as a freshman catcher practicing bunt plays throwing to first. Then throwing to the pitcher. Still struggles occasionally throwing to the pitcher. He has no problem pitching or making pickoff attempts or making throws from any other position. One silver lining from it is he has saved a lot of wear on his arm by not throwing hard to the pitcher 100 times a game.
I've seen pitchers struggle with making throws to first or second. Is this the issue your son is having or is it pitching related?
We've tried about every imaginable remedy. I'd be happy to go through what worked and what didn't.
Mine’s is when actually pitching. His team got a new coach this year who
constantly yelled things when he was on the mound like “throw strikes” and
“don’t walk him” and “don’t lose him”. Which stressed my kid out so much
that he started throwing more balls and walking batters. And now he
basically freaks out mentally when he’s on the mound which isn’t very often
since his control has been off. Viscous circle. I suspect part of it too
may be nagging injuries he’s had this season to his back, elbow, and
forearm.
On Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 4:52 PM HS Baseball Web <alerts@crowdstack.com>
wrote:
constantly yelled things when he was on the mound like “throw strikes” and
“don’t walk him” and “don’t lose him”. Which stressed my kid out so much
that he started throwing more balls and walking batters. And now he
basically freaks out mentally when he’s on the mound which isn’t very often
since his control has been off. Viscous circle. I suspect part of it too
may be nagging injuries he’s had this season to his back, elbow, and
forearm.
On Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 4:52 PM HS Baseball Web <alerts@crowdstack.com>
wrote:
This isn’t the 1990’s anymore. There are hundreds of great sports psychologists out there available. Get them some professional help, it can be easily taken care of in a vast majority of cases.
Is he just not throwing strikes or is he completely wild? Could he throw strikes if it were just the two of you in the backyard?
If he has elbow and forearm issues I would address getting those healthy first.
Thanks for the replies everyone! From the links provided to past threads, I see that this is an issue that A LOT of kids have gone through (and by association their parents). There's comfort in that. We're trying the sports psychologist route short term and shutting him down for a while after the season to get fully healed and reset mentally. He actually had a pretty good outing in last night's game and said that's the best he's felt physically in a long time, so that's something to build on. BTW the video that MAD posted above is worth checking out too.