I’m able to hit 88-90 on pull downs but sit 80-82 off the mound. I seem to have an issue with “jumping” off the mound, as you can see my back leg disconnects from the rubber way before my front foot lands. I also tend to throw with quite the extreme shoulder tilt, or throwing uphill.
Any suggestions of how to correct these things, such as throwing more linear and staying back on the rubber? Any other suggestions are appreciated as well.
Are you opening your hips to soon? Should you land on your front foot kinda facing between home plate and first base.
JM2379
The first thing that jumps out at me is the glove side arm. Take a look at the image below of you and a high level pitcher. You can clearly see how high you lift your glove side arm while your pitching arm breaks from your glove and lags behind you. You do a lot of good things in your delivery. I wouldn’t be so concerned about “jumping” off the mound. What you do is get your back drive leg foot turned over nicely opening up your hips while your shoulder stays closed.
I have had pitchers in the past who raise their glove arm side too high causing arm lag and shoulder pain. What seems to help after many dry drills is replacing your glove with a 2 lb weighted toning ball in your hand as you go through your pitching delivery. You do not need to throw a baseball each time, just run through your dry drills. Blend the drills. By this I have my pitchers do 5 dry drills with the 2 lb ball and then 1 dry drill full pitching motion with your glove on. Then we do this 4 times with the 2 lb ball then a full pitching dry drill and so on until you work your way down to 1. This blending will allow you to perform 21 dry drills in 1 set.
It’s you Winter Season now. Colleges will start back in January. Now is the time to put your work in. Good Luck to you. If you use the drill let me know how it goes.
Steve C
Hi Steve hope all is well with you and you son’s college season. I have Evan do this drill but I have him put the 2lb. ball in his glove. is it better to not use the glove?
Thank you for the in depth response, I’ll be trying out that drill to see if I can clean up that glove side.
I know you said not to worry so much about the “jumping”, but would you say it’s a sign I’m quad dominant and not getting even close to my force potential? You can see how quickly my heel disconnects from the rubber.
I also would not be concerned about the jump off the rubber. You generate a tremendous amount of momentum which is good. I’m also not concerned about the high glove as your glove arm gets to a good “equal & opposite” position relative to your throwing arm (ala Andy Pettitte) so balance and timing is maintained.
The first thing that I would suggest is to narrow your feet in the set position to eliminate the weight shift towards 2B at the start of your delivery. That weight shift tells base runners you’re going to the plate and takes away some of the advantage of being a lefty. Since this change is at the start of your delivery, I’d make it first and see what - if any - effect it has on the rest of your delivery before making any further changes downstream.
Hey Roger,
I agree that it won’t be much of a concern with his high glove side arm lift, but as this pitcher moves into ball release, he finishes with his head and chest behind his landing knee instead of out over his landing knee. His trunk is in a more upright position at ball release. I believe his high arm lift is preventing him from getting out and over. Your thoughts?
Hey Mike
You can use the 2 lb ball either way. I like using it without the glove so the pitcher can visually see where he is holding the ball.
Steve C
Steve,
I agree we want to see this pitcher get further out over the front leg but I think his failure to do so starts earlier than the high glove. What I see is that the pitcher weight shifts towards 2B and then stalls over the rubber through knee lift. He doesn’t start moving forward until after peak of knee lift and that, I feel, is what prevents him from getting out over the front leg. This is why I suggested narrowing the feet to eliminate the weight shift and then seeing what happens downstream.
I could help you if you are willing to learn some physics (most sports-minded instructors are not so accommodating). Back-in-the-day, I threw 95 mph as a minor league lefty, but had injury after injury. Now as a physics professor, I’m trying to show players some better ways to throw and swing based on physics. Some of my work was featured full-page in the NY Times in 2018. Of course, new ideas scare people so the road to re-education is a bumpy one.
I have been doing the drill with the 2lb ball (switched to 4lb ball because I noticed the 2lb ball seemed too light and wasn’t giving me the effect we are looking for) and really like it so far. The video I posted shows the difference only after a few days. I’ve been using the VeloPro harness with this as well to help with feeling proper load in my back side, which seems to be improving as well. Please let me know what you think.
I do have one concern though. I notice I tend to rush my front side and fly open, and can’t seem to hold that counter rotation and not tuck the glove to early. At the end of the video I included a frame from when my front foot lands. Any tips on how to achieve a stronger (maybe more patient) glove side and stay closed longer? I feel like by continuing to do this drill to fix the excessive tilt, improving my load, and then figuring out how to not fly open so early will be key to seeing improvements.
You waste energy with this motion.
A very basic drill I used throughout high school to keep my front side closed longer was going through my delivery with my back against a wall. While going through dry runs, it helped my body become aware of what it was like to keep my front side closed, as the wall works to not allow you to open up early.
Broken down more, it is essentially the basic follow through towel drill, but with your back and hips staying connected to the wall to improve awareness of what staying closed feels like.
It does appear that you are not falling off to the 3B side as much now, so what ever you are doing is definitely helping. I’m thinking a little more aggressive forward trunk tilt going into release to get you out over your front knee is in order.
