Patterning Importance By the Best Pitching Coach In Naperville

Patterning is something Spades Pitching, best pitching coach in Naperville, has our athletes do regularly. The goal of it is to create the same motion between all of our pitches, keeping the fastball mentality even when we are throwing breaking balls or change ups.

Too often we see pitchers slowing up the arm and the body when they are throwing something other than our fastball. It’s natural and the body does it because it knows we are trying to take velocity off. However, doing so creates tells for the hitter as well as inconsistencies in our release point. We know that the only thing that changes when it comes to our breaking pitches is wrist positioning. Different wrist positions will apply force levels to unique locations on the ball, which is what causes the sharp late break we, the best pitching coach in Naperville, are looking for. Ensuring that everything stays the same up to the release point allows our athletes to have an efficient, repeatable and deceptive mechanical framework.

Patterning should be done 2-3x a week in order to reap the full benefits of it. To set up, we want to be on both knees, offset at about a 20 degree angle. This will assist in helping create the hip shoulder separation we need from our athletes. It also can help to guide a pitcher in their set up on the mound. By that, we mean that if you notice your hips don’t swivel all the way centered when you are at release, we need to open our initial set up on the mound. If the hips over swivel when we are at release, then we know we need to start our set up a bit more closed off. Be mindful of how you finish, we still need to be stacked up. Head on shoulders, shoulder over hips is the goal of the finish is the cue’s we use at Spades Pitching, the best pitching coach in Naperville.

We also will start heaviest weight to lightest weight. In order to achieve this, we will hold our glove with a baseball in it and a towel tucked into the wrist portion of our glove. We then we ill perform 5 fastball throws, then 5 breaking ball throws and finishing with 5 change up throws. We will perform those same 3 pitch variations at the same frequency following the order below:

1)        Heaviest-Glove, baseball and towel(tucked into the wrist)

2)        Glove and baseball in glove. Taking the towel out to the side.

3)        Glove and towel tucked back in to the wrist. Baseball to the side.

4)        Glove. Towel and baseball put to the side.

5)        Glove back on our glove hand(can put a weighted ball in to assist in focusing on the blocking action). Baseball in towel performing the 15 throws.

6)        Glove on our glove hand. Baseball in our throwing hand.

7)        Glove on our glove hand. Towel in our throwing hand.

8)        Lightest-Glove on our glove hand. Empty hand performing the 15 throws.

Performing patterning can tell us a lot about our hips, arm slot and our stacking if we pay attention. We would highly recommend doing this in front of a mirror so you can assess all of these components as you work through it.

If this sounds of interest to you, please feel free  to contact Spades Pitching, the best pitching coach in Naperville, for a consultation session!