Again this year I am amazed at the different styles of pitching the girls use. The basic mechanics, once the motion has started, appears the same but I'm a little surprised at how some of them finish. Another reason why you can't be a stuck in the mud coach and need to really look at each girl closely to see if what they are doing is indeed going to work. All the girls at the WCWS appear effective in their own right so why tinker with it.
The wind up has gone more to the start from the hip which is fine but each girl seems to have her own unique version of it. I always tell my students that as long as it's legal and doesn't effect their mechanics I'll allow most anything. Those girls work very hard for years to get there, no different from your own pitchers you are using. Let them have some fun once in a while coaches. Pay more attention to the basic mechanics.
Another thing that I find interesting is how the girls' instructors had to have settled in and accepted that some of the girls are more effective with what I refer to as "generic" forms of certain pitches. We all know a curveball and a riseball and the direction of spin and travel those pitches should take. Some girls struggle to throw them exactly like we want and end up with a version of the pitch we now fondly call the rising curveball. There's nothing wrong with it but to be realistic, it's just the result from certain girls unable to effectively throw a clean rise or curve. There's something more important here-------movement. As an instructor, we strive to get a "clean pitch" as you can expect but as the girls get older we realize we may need to settle for a generic form. The reason; because while they can't throw a true curve the finish will create the rising curve and it moves. We want spin pitches to move. If we finally get the ratio of RPS (revolutions per second) to velocity (speed) we will get movement. This is why both Traina and Rogers are effective in their own right but I consider Traina the better pitcher. She has the ability to spin the ball with different velicities to not only get movement but mess with a hitter's timing. Rogers throws a generic curveball that becomes unpredictable due to her mechanics. She's not as sharp but just as deadly because not even she can tell you which pitch she'll be throwing till she lets go of the ball. lol. She'll make mistakes due to her lack of discipline or command of the pitces. The homeruns, at least 1 of them, she rolled up the side of the ball instead of getting under it causing the ball to fly towards the plate like a bullet out of a rifle. Why do they put rifling in barrels of rifles? So the bullet will fly straight and true for better accuracy. That's exactly what she got too. It went in flat and straight and came off the bat the same way-------till it cleared the fence. The pitch location was inside off the plate but the batter saw that spin and would not let that 3-1 count pitch go by.
Hunley from KY. is the real deal. She throws her pitches with a better command of the movement. She simply has a better handle on herself and has a natural control that is deadly to batters. Her job becomes easier because the only adjustment she really makes is up and down the zone. She has an amazing discipline that few can carry for long games. My worry for her is whether she can throw 150+ pitches game after game.
The Kid from La. I believe they called Sullivan. Would somebody please tell me what she is doing with her hand/wrist when she starts her pitch? Geez, the only time I ever saw anything close was a double-jointed girl with no control when she was younger. I'm surprised at how effective she seems to be but she's there and I'm in Ohio judging a kid that obviously can get the job done. Just wish I knew what she was doing............
