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Baseball Pitches Recommended

The foremost baseball pitches have been around a long time in baseball history. The origins of baseball go back to the different basic pitches.

Different pitches in baseballare the foundation to building the complete pitcher.

Pitching mechanics are important for consistently delivering the different pitches with control and being able to throw the pitch for strikes. The better your pitching mechanics and more consistent your pitching motion the better ability to throw strikes with different pitches.

Fastball Family of Pitches

The Four-Seam Fastball

The Two Seamer Fastball

The Game Changer Change-Up Pitch

How to Throw the Curveball

Sliders & Cutters

Awesome Drills for Teaching Pitch Grips

Pitching Tips: How Many Types of Baseball Pitches?

Pitchers often want to know how to throw harder and how to improve velocity. No doubt pitching velocity and power pitching is certainly a valuable skill and ability to have.

Having control of the pitches and throwing different pitches for strikes is equally important.

Choosing the right pitchesto throw is also important. Often baseball pitchers will try to develop too many pitches and have say, 6 or 7 mediocre baseball pitches rather than 3 or 4 pretty good pitches and 1 or 2 really good pitches.

In other words I would rather have three pitches I can throw for strikes most of the time compared to six or seven pitches I can inconsistently command only some of the time.

More is not always better. Use your practice time to focus on having three to five consistent pitches. Once you master command and control of two or three basic different pitch grips then you can start adding and experimenting with a new pitch or pitch grip.

Different Baseball Pitches & Grips

The fastball family of pitches includes at least five variations. Many college baseball coaches will have their college pitchers throw only pitches in the fastball species family during fall baseball season in order to develop pitching skills without throwing breaking pitches.

These five pitches give a youth league pitcher several weapons to throw strikes and change speeds. These are the pitches that pitchers want to master control and command of the ball.

Good competitive baseball pitchers will need to throw these five pitches over the plate a high percentage of the time.

Fastball Family of Pitches

1. Four Seam Fastball: The 4 seam fastball is the most commonly thrown pitch in baseball. Nearly every pitcher without exception throws a four seam fastball.

The four seamer is commonly the pitch a pitcher can go to when they need to throw a strike. Throwing strikes is one of the best pitching tips when one wants to know how to play baseball. A pitcher has to throw strikes to be effective so the four seam fastball is the pitch most often thrown with the most accuracy.

2. Two Seam Fastball: The 2 seam fastball is different from the four seam fastball grip in a couple of ways.

First the pitch grip is along the narrow two seams compared to the four seamer with the grip across the wide seams.

Secondly, the ball has a tendency to sink down and into a right-handed batter. Pitchers who know how to throw a sinker, as the pitch is known as in baseball lingo, can keep the batter from squaring up the ball on the barrel of the bat with late movement.

Pitching grips vary on the position of the grip on the seams. Otherwise the pitches are thrown the same in regards to how to pitch a fastball. Once a pitcher masters the control of the 4-seam fastball they should definitely try to advance to the 2 seam fastball baseball pitches grips.

3. BP Fastball: The batting practice fastball is a pitch thrown with about five MPH slower velocity than the pitchers’ average fastball speed.

Without changing the pitching motion the pitcher is able to slow the pitch down slightly by adding a third finer partially to the grip, choking the ball back in the hand just a little or by partially eliminating a full wrist snap at the release point.

The is pitch is for a hitter who is ahead in the count and a good fastball hitter. The pitch will look exactly like the fastball but the anxious batter will just slightly miss time the pitch and hit a routine play somewhere in the baseball field.

4. Hump up Fastball: There are situations in baseball game pitching where a pitcher cannot afford to give up a base hit. At times a need for an increase in pitching velocity is needed to put away a hitter or have a good hitter miss time a pitch to get a pitcher out of a jamb.

The hump up fastball is a couple or three MPH faster than a normal pitch. This is a pitching tip for baseball that occasionally a pitcher can reach back for a few MPH of velocity realizing throwing baseball pitches at this speed all the time is not possible with their ability. But a pitch or two per game is within reach when teaching pitchers how to play baseball.

The Game Changer Change-Up Pitch Grip

5. Straight Change Up: The higher and more advanced a pitcher reaches the more need the pitcher will have to know how to throw a change up.

The key to the change-up is to make the pitching motion look exactly like the fastball is coming only the pitch is thrown 10-15 MPH slower than the fastball grip pitch.

Pitchers will needa change up to be able to keep the batters from teeing off on their fastballs. Establishing the change up gives the batter something else to think about and creates doubt in the hitters mind.

Good pitchers are able to create doubt in hitter’s minds. When learning how to throw pitches all pitchers should begin early on working on how to throw change up pitch grips.

How to Throw Curveballs 
Sliders & Cutters

Breaking Pitches: Curveballs and sliders are the most common breaking pitches. Sharp, late breaking pitches can be some really good weapons for baseball pitchers.

Keeping hitters from squaring up the ball on the barrel of the bat are basic pitching strategies. Curves and sliders breaking sharply disrupt the timing of batters and keep the baseball off the barrel of the bat or the sweet spot.

I know you know that youth baseball players should not throw breaking pitches until they are old enough to shave—throwing breaking pitches before physical maturity can be hazardous which may cause throwing arm injuries.

Plus the young pitchers end up relying too heavily on throwing curveballs and fail to properly develop the power fastball pitches.

How to Throw a Curveball

Curveballs: Learning how to throw a curveball is worth the effort. A sharp, late breaking curveball can be a devastating weapon for a pitcher developing how to throw different pitches.

Practicing pitching drills and learning how to throw the curveball for strikes and with sharp ‘bite’ is part of the art of pitching.

The curveball can be a difficult pitch to master control and command but the upside is big if you can develop a good curveball pitching grips.

How to Throw Slider,
Cutter & Cut Fastball

Sliders: Pitchers wonder how to throw a slider. Sometimes pitchers want to know how to throw a cut fastball or a cutter.

Basically the slider and the cut fastballbaseball pitches are all the same although some sliders have a bigger ‘break’ than others. The slider is thrown harder than the curveball pitch grip but not quite as fast as the fastball.

The good slider usually has a sharp late break and can be deceptive to the batter.

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