An Eye Opener

Through a serendipitous sequence of events—I’m not going to bore you with all of the gory details—I was able to finagle myself an invitation to throw a bullpen session at a top notch indoor facility last Thursday with two guys who have a myriad of professional baseball experience. Both of them played A ball last year and this was their last session in Canada before heading down to minor league spring training.

I was there to soak up as much knowledge as I could, receive some advice on playing professional baseball and, hopefully, learn the key that unlocks the door to the wonderful world of greater pitch velocity.

At times, I felt like the old Sesame Street song: “One of these things is not like the others.” These guys threw HARD and were unflinchingly accurate. And this was from the first moment of warm-ups.

I pride myself on preparing my body physically to withstand the rigours of pitching day in and day out during the spring and summer. I spend hours in the gym lifting heavy weights to get my body as strong as possible. I don’t want anyone to outwork me in the gym.

However, in terms of warming up my arm to throw on the mound, I just kind of throw. I don’t really attack the process with the same fervour as I do lifting in the gym. I’ve just never really thought to do otherwise. Throughout my baseball career, all of the teams I’ve been on have used the 10-15 minutes of throwing during warm-ups to basically loosen your arm and socialize. That would be followed by a few long toss throws and then it was time to buckle down and hit the mound.

These guys were completely different. Right from the beginning, each and every throw had a purpose. They tried to throw the ball THROUGH each other, all while hitting their mechanical checkpoints with startling efficiency. At times, I would lollipop a ball to my partner or just solely use my arm to throw and I was quickly admonished.  

They told me that warm-ups were the time to build your arm strength by keeping the ball as low to the ground as possible (think waist height), use your entire body by invoking a short crow hop step, and throwing through your target. This continued even as we stretched our arms out to north of 150 feet (I said it was an impressive facility).

We probably spent at least ten minutes of throwing really hard back and forth to each other from wall to wall in the gym. Then and only then was it time to go the mound. They gave me a few mechanical tweaks to work on—analogous to my desire to lengthen my stride and derive more power from my lower half—while I watched them go through a bullpen session.

The thing that struck me the most about watching professionals pitch up close is their attention to detail and ability to replicate consistent mechanics. I’ve talked ad nauseum on here about lengthening my stride each time I deliver the ball and the difficulties I have in achieving that consistency.

Their front foots landed in the exact same spot on every pitch. Not sometimes, once in awhile or more often that not, but EVERY SINGLE TIME. It was incredibly impressive to witness. That’s the type of consistency I strive for and what I need to compete at higher levels of the game.

When my control is an issue, I fall off the mound sideways instead of driving towards the catcher and finishing my delivery square to the plate. Also, when I miss the strike zone I usually miss high which means that I’m not releasing the ball on a proper plane to throw with good velocity in the zone. I need to think about ‘scraping the dirt’ with my pitching hand rather than have my delivery resemble an unfinished symphony (like Roy McAvoy’s golf swing).

Luckily, I was able to throw three times last week and plan on throwing twice more this week, so I am eager to work on the changes in my delivery so I use every part of my body, instead of just my arm, to propel the ball to the plate.