Throwing Across my body

#1

I have a recently discovered mechanics flaw (from this weekend). I was having an issue locating my curveball and my friend who was catching my bullpen who is also a pitcher, said non-chalantly ‘If you’re going to throw across your body then aim here.’ He moved his glove to the inside part of the plate, i’m a righty. And my next curveball was located perfectly and cut right across the strike zone 2 to 8. I’ve been having location issues for some time and i never knew why, i would throw outside too much and then try to make adjustments and then just lose all control and would have no idea where the ball could be going. But when my friend made that suggestion, all my pitches fell into place almost instantly. Now I top out at 83mph. I have no arm problems, no discomfort, the usual soreness in my shoulder after throwing. But i know that throwing across my body is not good, i know that eventually one day it will lead to an injury and it may even be limiting my potential to gain more velocity. What i’m in search of is any tips or drills i could use to eliminate throwing across my body. I’m looking for outside opinions, I also have a professional opinion from a friend who was a minor league pitcher that threw 98mph. Thanks in advance for any help!

-Rob

#2

Rob, there is this thing, it’s called the “Pygmallion Effect”, what it means is that you can basically call in stuff on yourself by “expecting it”…it’s also called a “self-fullfilling prophecy”…don’t expect to be hurt…never.
Many people are in the bigs, throwing across their body. They made the show. They are competing and in some notable cases winning. To make it there they had to rise to the top…they made sacrifices and compromizes, they adapted and overcame. Would you change Bumgardner or Fuentes? Who would we be to second guess guys who did it…I’ve mentioned before that I would likely, in a very new pitcher, attempt to adjust a kid who threw across their body…just on the efficiency/accuracy stand-point…but for a seasoned competent and successful pitcher who can locate in his delivery…I wouldn’t change it unless they couldn’t hit a barn with a bat.
Work on you, condition you. You don’t appear to have accuracy issues…(It looks like you are getting it by your post)…if you are comfortable and growing think very hard on whether it is in your best interests to change radically your delivery at this point.

#3

It is very important not to throw across your body. That being said my friend who now plays low A for the Orioles throws across his body badly. its not something that is going to hurt your chances of getting someone out, but like you said its eventually going to lead to an arm injury, and prob steal mph’s from you. One drill i can think of, practice on a 8 foot 2 by 6 peice of wood when you throw your flat grounds to get use to stepping towards your target. This will stop you from stepping towards third, this closes you off to home plate, in turn causes you to throw across your body. when you do start to straiten your stride out it is important, vital! that you keep your elbow up at least even with your shoulder. and your wrist should be above your elbow.(90 degree angle) if not you are throwing 3/4 or side arm and not fully getting through, or behind the baseball as they say. you also have to take your follow through or finish into consideration when thinking about velo. you wanna finish strong and out infront. the further out infront you can throw the baseball the less distance it has to travel and more than likely it will be traveling faster than if you are throwing from behind your ear or across your body. you prob wanna someone who knows baseball and knows you and will work with you on finding that confortable and powerful realease over the top.

#4

Throwing across you body usually is a result of not striding directly at the
catcher. You are probably landing to the throwing hand side of a line drawn from your pivot foot to the catcher. For a simple
drill, draw that line and work on striding to land either on that line or slightly to the glove hand side of that line. One word of caution, don’t swing your leg. Stride to that position.

#5

And there’s another possibility. Pitchers who throw sidearm will do that, and in that case there’s nothing wrong with it, especially if they use the crossfire a lot. I was a crossfiring sidearmer who would take a step toward third base, whip around and fire to the plate from that angle—throwing across my body—and how that used to doscombooberate the hitters who never knew where the pitch was coming from, only that it was a strike!