It’s common for pitchers to either release the ball too soon or not be strong enough with their twist at release. Both create accuracy problems that can be helped using this simple drill.

Too often, pitchers focus too much on the start of their motion and not enough on their finish. Starting with too much arm swing or trying to stride too far can really lead to problems during the most important part of the motion – and that’s the release. I’m not suggesting that pitchers shouldn’t stride, or have an arm swing-type beginning, but I am saying that concentrating too much on these elements at the expense of the release spells BIG trouble for a pitcher.

By over-emphasizing the start of their motion pitchers tend to either drag their hand too far back at release resulting in low pitches. Or, their pitches don’t break much and end up over the middle.

For advanced pitchers that throw different pitches this problem will show itself by their pitches not really breaking much – instead, they stay too much over the plate. And with younger pitchers, this problem looks like the pitcher is leaning forward as she lets go of the ball which is caused by the ball not being far enough forward when the pitcher has to let go of it, resulting in her having to pull instead of push the ball.

Luckily, both issues are solved by a pitching drill that is simple in its setup, but at first, won’t seem so simple to your pitchers. Here’s how it works:

To start, the pitcher gets about 15 feet from the catcher as shown in Pic 1- Start in the pictures above, and spreads her feet about shoulder-width apart. She then pitches the ball to her catcher, without moving her feet! At first, all pitches should be fastballs, no matter how good your pitcher is. It will take her a while to get used to this drill, but she will. (You might hear the phrase “this is hard” a lot).

Once she gets used to letting go with her hand in front of her then have the catcher start giving targets. Move the glove to a new location only after the pitcher has hit the target.

After the pitcher starts to get more consistent with her accuracy then switch to the changeup and insist on her hitting the target (just like her fastball).

For advanced pitchers they can then move on to their curveball, drop, riseball and screwball. The screwball will be the most difficult from this position but it will really force her to move her hand better at release instead of simply relying on her arm motion.
If your pitcher really struggles when doing her different pitches then switch from a regular ball to a Zip Ball to help her really get around the ball in her release.

After doing this for about 15 minutes then have your pitcher move back to her regular pitching distance and work on making sure her beginning doesn’t get in the way of her end!