My son is 18 years old. Last fall he got picked up by a very good travel team as a pitcher. He has primarily always been a starter but on this team they use him in closing and relief. He really enjoys his role on the team, as he will make many appearances and gets a lot of mound time. My question is though by the end of a long turny you can see his arm getting tiered. He is not throwing a lot of pitches but consecutive days. What is the best way to prepare for this role? Ive even seen him really limit his bull pin as to keep fresh longer
What kind of work do they have him doing?
Four days in a row, once or twice a day. How many times a day is he getting warm and cooling off?
What is his general conditioning?
Even though he is in relief do they give him a pitch count?
I was a fifth, sixth, and (if necessary) seventh inning guy in HS, but a starter in American Legion. It’s a totally different regimen–starting vs relieving.
Remember that the warm up pitches should count toward your pitch totals as a reliever. Often I would throw at least 15-20 full intensity pitches in the pen before entering so that I knew I was locked on before hitting the mound in a dirty inning. There is no time to work things out unless you are starting an inning clean. I also would only throw 2-3 pitches between innings. Fastball, curveball, and / or change up (coming down).
Starting, I would only take 4-5 pitches from the mound entering the game then a change up for the throw down to second base.
Over the course of a game, you can save yourself an inning of work just in reduced warm up pitches you really don’t need but simply take because they are given to you.
One thing I just remembered my HS coach had the first reliever do each game. We charted pitches until we were told to get warm. I loved it because my head was in the game and I had been thinking about the opposing batting order for the entire game to that point. I knew how we had pitched to each and the results. It was an immense help.
Mostly he is the need a ground ball DP, pop up to get out of the inning kid. He throws from a low 3/4 slot, lots of movement. . No pitch count but rarely goes more than 3 innings at a time. and never more than 5 innings in a day. he averages according to stats about 13.7 pitches per inning. Most consecutive days I have seen was 3. He is in good shape 6, 2" about 190lbs.