The Basics of Pitching and Catching
for Beginners
for Beginners
Most importantly...
Let's have some fun!
What You Will Learn Today...
- In baseball, the pitcher is the player who throws the baseball from the
pitcher’s mound toward the catcher to begin each play, with the goal of
retiring a batter who attempts to either make contact with the pitched ball
or draw a walk.
- If the pitcher is “on”, the game can move very
quickly, if not, it will be up to the other defensive players to help
defend the team in the field.
- Today, we will start with the basics. For more advanced level ball players
(Travel Ball/Competitive Play), you will have to worry about balks, lead
offs, pick offs, early runners, all of that stuff. For now, I will keep it
basic.
- The pitcher’s main job at the mound is to pitch
strikes, earned or unearned.
- An earned strike is when the pitcher throws a good
pitch in the strike zone.
- An unearned strike is a pitch that is called a strike, but is really a ball.
- On the mound there are two different positions to pitch
in, the windup and the stretch.
- A windup is when the pitcher takes his time to do a
longer windup.
- A pitcher would use the windup when there are no
runners on a base, a runner on second and third, a runner on third, or
bases loaded (all bases are occupied by runners).
- The stretch is when the pitcher is in a hurry to
throw the ball. A pitcher would
throw from the stretch when there are runners on 1st or 2nd,
3rd, or 1st and 2nd.
- The stretch is used in any other situation or when
you want to keep the runner as “close” to the base as you can.
- The biggest mistake a pitcher can make is to use
either the windup or stretch when the other not needed. If there is a
runner on third base, there is no reason to use the stretch unless you are
going to try and pick off the runner and take the chance of throwing the
ball away.
- When bases are loaded, you have the choice of doing either the wind up or the stretch, whichever one you are better at.
- The first pitch that any pitcher should learn to use
is a simple fastball. If it is 4-seam or 2-seam, it doesn’t matter. As
long as it is a fastball, it still counts. When you are getting better at
baseball and moving up to more advanced levels, you will learn to throw
off-speed pitches like change-ups, curves, cutters, etc. I will only talk
about fastballs today and later in my blogs, when I get to more advanced
techniques, I will talk about off-speed, but for now, only fastballs.
- To grip a 4-seam fastball, make the seams look like
a horse shoe with the opening facing to the left. Put the pads of your
fingers on the seams and try to get some back-spin on the ball. Now all
you have to do is find your accuracy and speed. The 4 seam will travel in
a straight line towards the catcher.
- To throw a 2-seam fastball, put your index and middle fingers on the two seams in the middle of the ball under the horse shoe. The 2-seam fastball (if thrown correctly) will cut to the left or right (depending on what hand is primary for you). If you are young, don’t be expecting to get your ball to cut right away. I am 12 years old, and my 2-seam doesn’t move at all. So don’t sweat it.
- The key to getting better at pitching is to practice, practice, practice. Don’t be afraid to give it a try. Raise your hand and tell your coach that you’d love to try to pitch. If you continue to play competitive ball, during tournaments, relief pitchers come in very handy.
- So now that you know about how to throw a pitch, you need to rely on your catcher to know what he is doing, so that it what I will be talking about below.
The Basics of Catching
- Some would argue that the catcher is the most
important player on the field, or is it the pitcher? Either way, catcher
is definitely a very important position in the game of baseball. The
catcher’s #1 job is to catch strikes. Now you might be thinking, “what if
it is a ball?” Good question. You always want to try to catch the ball if
you can, but you always want to try and make it a strike if it doesn’t
require too much exaggeration.
- In Little League, most umpires will be willing to make the strike zone about a whole baseball outside the plate either way. If the ball is a little bit outside of those boundaries (and only a little bit), then you can “gather” the ball towards to your chest plate. Don’t jerk the ball towards your chest, or you have a way less chance of getting the call. Make it a swift, casual motion. If the ball is outside of the boundaries and it is even too far out of the gathering boundaries, just let it pass. You will get plenty more opportunities.
- If you do this technique correctly, then you should be able to get about 6-9 more strikes than if you didn’t frame it at all. As I said before, the catcher’s #1 job, is to catch strikes.
- A catcher also needs to learn how to block. Most
catchers in little league (me too) are scared of an incoming ball that
is in the dirt. There are two things that you could do in this situation.
- Either you could spring out of the way, or get down
and try your hardest to block the ball, and if there is a runner on, get
him out. No matter what you do in baseball, as a catcher, you will get
hit. I am not saying that you should practice at home and kill yourself by
getting hard baseballs thrown at you. I am saying that you need to be
prepared in case you experience this in practice and games. There is a
saying, “It is better to have it, and not need it, than to need it, and
not have it.”
- The catcher is one of the leaders of the infield.
You can call plays, throw runners out, block balls, but a great skill to
learn is to communicate with your teammates.
- If the pitcher is having a bad day, the infield is
quiet, and the opponents are just crushing the ball, you should realize
that you just need your team to get motivated again.
- If you take the time to slow the game down, talk to the pitcher, give the infield a little heads up to chatter in the infield, you could get out of the inning! It isn’t really that complicated at all. You just need someone to take charge. That is what the catcher does.
Join me for my next blog where I will explain the
other positions in the infield. Until then, practice,
practice, practice!
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