Total Reading Time: 6 minutes

Happy Monday. Let’s look at how to help your pitchers breakdown this past weekend without breaking them down. Plus, a great drill for the Drop.

So let’s Go!

Table of Contents

• How to Review the Past Weekend with Your Pitchers

• A Great Drill for the Drop

How to Review the Past Weekend with Your Pitchers

These preseason 5-game weekends are filled with lots of up and down moments that can make it challenging when we meet with our pitchers for review.

Dredging up video on all the bad pitches gets you nowhere - except more bad pitches. But we can’t just fill them with false compliments either, so how do we review our outings honestly and helpfully?

I like asking questions before telling information. To help them look less emotionally and more specifically at their outings I ask them to “use a microscope” to look for the smallest piece of evidence.

Consider a pitcher who’s been working really hard to create a helpful routine and keep her breathing in-between pitches. It might take a microscope for this pitcher to notice that during a rough outing, she did pause to breathe and collect herself. This is the kind of tiny progress that’s not only important to make, but it’s important to notice!

These questions help your pitchers open up and have a healthy discussion about their outings. It’ll take a bit of time and trust for them to totally open up, but once they do it’s far more powerful for them to recognize things than for you to just tell them.

Most of your pitchers will know the things you’re likely to say anyway. Help them look at their outings with honesty, but without criticism or judgment.

A Great Drill for the Drop

While the drop is an effective pitch, it can be tricky to find a way to practice the entrance path. Too often, pitchers will just angle the entrance path straight down causing the pitch to bounce or hit the plate.

Telling pitchers to “keep the ball up longer” gets you nowhere, so I tried something that forces pitchers to do just that - keep the entrance path of their drop higher long and then make the ball drop at the plate.

Here’s how it goes. You’ll need:

• 3 concrete blocks

• 1 sandbag

Set the concrete blocks on top of each other about ½ to 2/3 of the way from the pitching rubber. Place it about ½ way for an average dropbller and 2/3 of the way from the pitcher for an excellent drop and then place the sandbag on homeplate (or just in front of it).

This not only gives your pitcher immediate feedback, but helps her fielding when she’s too low on her entrance path 😂

Thanks for reading this week’s Curveball Chronicles. I hope you gained some insight, some encouragement, some knowledge or some grace.

Go make this a Great week!!

Missed some previous issues? Don’t worry, I’ve got them all on my website: https://pitchingcoachcentral.com/curveball-newsletter/