Your thumb should be directly underneath the baseball, not touching any of the seams below. Will create some movement to help deceive the hitter. This is usually the easiest pitch to throw for a strike.
A slider is gripped like a two-seam fastball, but held slightly off-center. To grip the four seam fastball, place your index and middle fingertips directly on the perpendicular seam of the baseball. The “horseshoe seam” should face into your ring finger of your throwing hand .
Like Fastball Shape, the concept of Vertical Approach Angle thrives on being different from the average. If you’re not familiar with the concept whatsoever, I will give a brief but detailed rundown. Let’s start with a fact – all types of fastballs enter the zone at certain angles.
The average speed of a fastball is 91mph in the majors. The ball creates a tight spin and rotates from bottom-to-top as viewed by the hitter. You will find that this pitch will move based on the amount of pressure you use with your index finger. The other variable for movement will be how much you choke the ball in your hand. The standard grip on the left and adjust based on their comfort, ability to command the pitch, and movement profile.
However, it is best performed from a “post-stride” position. Therefore, the pitcher must take his stride prior to completing the action of the upper body, as he did from the kneeling position. Again, a two seamer is gripped a little firmer than the four seamer.
While each inch of fastball movement matters a lot, it matters more for older athletes who throw harder. Younger athletes should not only focus on throwing hard and to a target but also try to get behind the ball with backspin. Throws in the field will be with a four-seam grip, and we’d want to get good ball flight when playing defense. And arguably most important pitch in a player’s arsenal. Synonymous with high velocities, a pitcher’s four-seam fastball typically exhibits some degree of backspin and arm-side movement. Post pictures of your pitching grips on mybaseball pitching discussion forums.
And instead of leverage coming from behind the top of the baseball (as a four-seam fastball), leverage on a curve comes from the front of the baseball. The baseball should be tucked comfortably against the circle. In other words, because I’m a righty, I’d throw two-seamers inside to right-handed batters and four-seamers away. I always liked how the feel of the grip of the two-seamer in my glove (when I was in my pre-pitch stance) let me know on a sub-conscious level that I was going inside on guy. When throwing a two-seam fastball, your index and middle fingers are placed directly on top of the narrow seams of the baseball .
Some will appear to rise as the pitch is thrown, and others will have a regular downward path or break away. Easier pitches to hit will follow an expected fastball path – not sinking, rising, official wiffle ball strike zone dimensions or breaking much above the average. The hardest pitches to hit deviate from that path – rising, sinking, and horizontally breaking at a rate that is much different than the average pitch.
Each pitch is different, with different axises needed to make the ball move a certain way. But, what if you could make two different pitches look like they are spinning the same way? A fastball that generally goes straight and a breaking pitch that won’t reach the strike zone appears to be the same pitch for the majority of the path to the hitter. Only when each pitch is about to break does it become obvious to the hitter that he is not seeing the pitch he expected, leaving them either whiffing or in a daze of confusion. When looking at the qualified pitches, you will see a cluster around the 0,0 mark. As the majority of a sample is closer to the average, it makes sense that most pitches fall near that area.