Yes, in fastpitch, the pitcher is critical. The greatest defense in the world cannot win without decent pitching. Good pitching stops good hitting. I will leave the mechanics of pitching to others—there is a plethora of good videos and books about pitching alone. I have another perspective about pitching. I consider different pitches as tools. Just as you use a hammer for one job and a saw for another job, different pitches have different jobs to perform. The tools are:
Heat
Controlled heat will always be important in pitching. It makes common sense that the faster the pitch, the less time for the batter to react, therefore the batter makes more bad decisions when heat is thrown. Now think about that for a minute. Throwing heat is based on baiting a batter to swing at a bad pitch? Actually heat makes the ball move and makes batters miss as well. If you hit against a pitching machine in a cage, you can adjust to hitting any speed, no matter how fast. So, while important, heat alone can and will be hit eventually. Heat is relied on for the younger ages. As batters get older and stronger, they adjust to heat very quickly. Heat is most effective when other pitches are used as well to disrupt the timing of the batter. Heat is a strike out tool.
Rise
The rise ball is the most difficult fastpitch to hit. As players advance in age the transition from heat to rise ball dominance is evident. High school ages feature the rise. The difficulty for the batter is that the rise ball is half way to you before it makes its move….which varies from a “climber” to a “jumper”. The batter has to make a decision when the ball has yet to break, so the bat is enroute to the ball…and the sucker jumps or climbs over the bat!. To add insult to injury, the common practice for rise ball pitchers is to:
A) throw it waist high and watch it climb to the shoulders. Swing and a miss.B) throw it letter high and watch it climb to the chin. Swing and a miss.C) throw it shoulder high and watch it climb to the eyes. Swing and a miss.This is called “climbing the ladder.” The “rise in the eyes” is a well used 0-2 or 1-2 pitch baiting the batter to swing at a bad pitch. The rise is a strike out tool.The batter must actually guess where the ball is going to be when the bat makes contact. This does come with experience and after many whiffs.Heat and the rise ball are the idols of young pitchers everywhere, because they can make batters look stupid striking out, and make the pitcher a hero. Jim Hendershott (Nashville, TN) made an entire career out of the rise. He could not throw another pitch, but he won hundreds of games with the one he did have. I was fortunate that he was my fastpitch coach. He taught me the shortcuts to hitting the rise.
Drop
The drop ball is not a strike out tool. It is not a macho, blow the batter away pitch. It is designed to force a batter into hitting it into the ground to the infield. As pitchers get to higher levels, they find they cannot just blow the ball by batters from the 43 feet college distance like they could be at the 35’ youth or 40’ high school distances. College and adult batters seldom strike out. That being the case, the best thing a pitcher can do is to keep the ball in the infield for routine ground outs. Sharp downward breaks of the drop ball make it difficult to hit solidly, particularly since the pitch is located around the knees…the farthest distance from the eyes that is in the strike zone. I love the drop as a coach, partly because I hated it so much as a batter! Bill Gentry (Nashville, TN) won hundreds of games in his fastpitch with very few strikeouts and just one pitch…the drop. His strike zone was from the top of the knee cap to the ankle. I was fortunate to play behind Bill and watch the frustration from opposing batters. I have never forgotten those lessons. 21 ground outs per game equals a win!
Change
The change is a pitch thrown with full motion that is much slower than normal. It usually is thrown at 0-2, 1-2, or when a batter has turned on a fastball and hit it solidly and pulled it foul. Any indication of over-aggressiveness will draw a change. It is particularly effective in making the fast stuff look faster as well. Lindy Lower (Beech High School, Hendersonville, TN) is the best pitcher I have ever seen at any level at throwing the change. Lindy throws it about 17 different speeds and makes batters look foolish. Umpires just shake their heads and laugh at her magic. Lindy knows the art of making batters miss. She features the drop and change, using heat only to set up her drop and change. Belmont University has another magician in Sherry Teagarden. Sherry once threw 7 changes in a row (nobody touched them) in the semi-finals of the 18-under World Series. I laughed so hard I cried. I love spunk and brains.
Curve and Screw
Defining the curve as a “breaking away from the right hand batter” and the screw as “breaking” toward the right handed batter” (from right handed pitchers), these pitches are strike out tools of deception instead of power. They require tracking by the batter, anticipating where the pitch will cross the plate (if at all), much the same as a rise ball but with a sideways break instead of an upward break.
Speed Mix
Any pitch is hittable if thrown at the same speed every time. The key to pitching is to make the batter miss a little. Varying the speed of all pitches prevents a batter from timing its arrival.
Location
The knees are my favorite location as a coach for my pitchers. The outside corner at the knees is the location batters hit hard. In fact, they will take a strike or two at that location in hopes of getting a pitch up in the zone. I saved an article from a baseball World Series story about Greg Maddux of the Atlanta Braves makes his living hitting the outside corner at the knees. It also tells how to attack such a pitcher and beat them. I have taught this theory for years. I still keep the ball at the knees outside until a team proves they can beat me by hitting them…then bring it inside at the knees. Beat that if you can.
Mix, Mix, Mix
Varying speeds, pitches, and locations are the keys to making batters miss. While not striking many out, missing just a little is enough to prevent hits.