Baseball: Curveball Pitches
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Curveball pitches are the hardest to perfect, both for pitchers and hitters. How many times do you hear about a hitter who cant hit breaking pitches? Basically, if you cant hit a breaking pitch, you wont have much of a life in baseball. If you cant throw curveball pitches, you will most likely have limited success.
The hardest thing about curveball pitches is the strain on the arm. To throw an effective curveball it is necessary to snap the arm on its way down. This will cause the ball to spin and drop as it comes to the plate. For young pitchers, this snapping motion is very difficult. Its both hard on the arm and hard to place in the catchers mitt.
Mastering Curveball Pitches
Its hard enough to place a fastball in the four corners. Now try placing a curveball which is intentionally supposed to move to a different location. So if youre trying to hit the lower left corner of the batters box, you may have to aim towards the upper left corner. If you hang the curveball, itll get hit. A hanging curveball isnt much more threatening than a batting practice fastball.
At the same time, people get a little too concerned over balls vs. strikes. A ball can quickly become a strike if the batter whiffs at it. Some pitches are intentionally thrown out of the strike zone in the hope that the batter will chase. People who think a pitcher is struggling every time he throws a ball dont quite know the game of baseball. Wicked curveball pitches can have batters swinging at pitches that are well off the plate.
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Posted on: Saturday, June 21, 2008 at 3:00 pm 
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