Softball Pitching Basics - 10 Things You Need to Know Part 3

.credit MU softball for this cool photo.

Let's Learn some new Pitches

4. Now that you have gained some good control over your self and your pitching, it is time to learn a new pitch or two. You are already confident with throwing your fastball. That is a great pitch to have. You are now able to hit your spots somewhat consistently. Keep practicing on hitting your spots with your fastball, that will help set up the batter for the next pitch.

The next pitch to learn is probably the most important pitch in a Fastpitch softball pitchers arsenal. This next pitch will; when you master it, make most batters look silly at the plate. It will allow you to strike them out one after the other. They won't even know what just happened. It will be like the ball just appeared from your Fastpitch softball gloves and landed in the catchers mitts.

This pitch is called The Changeup. There are many forms of the changeup. The Shove, the Backhand Fernandez, the Flip, the Stiff Wrist, and others I can't think of at the moment. My personal favorite is a rarely seen one called the Fleeman. It's kind of a secret so we won't discuss it here.

The main thing to remember about your change up is this pitch must have reduced speed of about 10-15 mph, look exactly like a fastball to the batter and is thrown at all different times in the count. In other words, don't just throw it when you have a 2-0 count. Throw this pitch early in the count and early and often in the game. This will mess with the batters timing.

Just as with most of the other pitches this one will take some time to learn well. It may take a year, or just 6 months but it will take a lot of pitches. Maybe as many as 10,000 or more to master this pitch, but it will be worth it. Now go practice your Change up.

Just keepin' it real…