Coach Candrea and Team USA work with SportSkool to teach the softball fundamentals of base running. Team USA coach Mike Candrea and Amanda Freed cover the art of pitching. Amanda Freed shows the proper upper and lower body mechanics and the grips to throw a fastball, change-up, drop ball, and rise ball.
Key Points:
Foot Position: Place your feet about shoulder width apart with your front foot near the middle of the pitching rubber with your hips pointing toward home.
Motion: Like hitting, you start with a negative motion (in this case a slight movement away from the plate) then load onto the front leg to drive toward home. As your front foot moves forward, rotate the hips and shoulders to point toward the plate. Lastly, follow through with your back foot and hips.
Working Through Your Pitches: Always start with mastering the fastball because that builds your pitching base. Once you have the ability to locate 7 out of 10 fastballs, then you can start working on the breaking pitches. The three foundation pitches are the fastball, drop, and rise.
Drop Ball: The flip drop is the next easiest pitch to learn. You grip the ball across the four seams and with the mechanics similar to a fastball but you turn your hand over to flip the ball that gets the downward rotation on the ball. The turn over drop is gripped either with your fingers across the four seams or along the two seams. As your hand passes by the back hip, your hand rotates 270 degrees with your hand pointing toward third, then home, then your hip.
Rise Ball: The rise ball is gripped along the two seams with the middle finger on the thumb side of the horseshoe seam. On the arms downward motion, you want to keep your arm and wrist as straight as possible. As the hand passes by the back hip, the hand rotates under to put a backward rotation on the ball. Remember to follow through with your hand toward the opposite shoulder.
Change-Up: The change-up pitch is vital to keeping hitters off balance. The most popular change-up is the back hand change-up. You grip the ball across the four seams. As the hand starts downward, the hand rotates so that when the ball reaches your back hip, the hand is on the home plate side of the ball. Finally, flip the ball to the catcher and finish with your hand low.
Lower Body Movement: Your lower body moves differently on each pitch. On the drop ball, you want to take a shorter stride in order to get your body over the ball to get the dropping movement. Like the drop ball, for the change up you also want to shorten your stride so the ball will stay low in the strike zone. For the rise ball, you want to extend your stride so your hand can get under the pitch.
There is a lot more to softball pitching than what can be covered in this 11 minute video. Two DVDs that the local softball organization provides to players who are interested in learning to pitch are: The Basics and Fundamentals Windmill Pitching and Increasing Speed: Troubleshooting Tips and Drills for Increasing Pitching Velocity.
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