Since the Fort Myers showcase in early February, it seems like every column I’ve written over the past six to eight weeks has documented, to some degree, my search for better mechanics and the full utilization of my body—not just my arm—when I pitch.
I apologize for the redundancy; if you’re sick of reading about hip extension, back leg drive and stride length, just imagine how I feel writing about it ad nauseum, while simultaneously trying to incorporate a bevy of training tips and fixes into my delivery each time I throw. At times, I feel like Ponce de Leon searching for the Fountain of Youth and, much like Ponce
However, that’s what makes this dream so fascinating: the process. If it was easy to obtain mechanical mastery of my delivery and throw eighty-eight miles an hour by just getting out of bed in the morning, then this blog would have nothing to do with long bus rides. Instead, it would probably be called Flying High on My G6 as my personal assistant typed out my plan to spend my brand new $60 million contract while flying at 35,000 feet on my private jet drinking Cristal with P Diddy.
I’ve never had to think so much about my delivery before. I always used to just kind of throw. I cared about my craft, but never really threw myself into bettering my mechanics as I have this offseason. Now, more than ever, I realize that true pitching starts and ends with your mechanics. I can be strong as an ox and in fantastic physical shape, but if I can’t harness that strength into each pitch, then it’s all for naught.
At my throwing session on Sunday night, there was a guy with a myriad of professional experience watching my bullpen (I really have lucked out with getting the opportunity to throw in front of talented pitchers willing to help me over the past few weeks).
The first thing he said to me was that I was throwing with just my arm. Obviously, my efforts to derive more power from my hips and legs weren’t working as well as I thought (though my offspeed stuff was still benefiting from my desire to lengthen my stride). He spent some time discussing proper mechanics with me, but he also showed me what he was talking about.
I’m not going to get into the mundane details of what we discussed, but the big difference was the aural, visual and tactile cues he used to get his message across. I ‘got’ what he was saying. It made sense to me. And after some practice, I could feel the difference when I hit the correct mechanical checkpoints and when I didn’t.
The ball just felt different coming out of my hand. It had a little extra pop, even though it seemed like I wasn’t throwing as hard when I typically reached back for a little something extra. I have to learn to throw with my arm last and let my body do the lion’s share of the work.
There are a lot of moving parts to a pitching delivery and there were some movements that I understood better than others, but I feel like I’m closing in on that elusive moment when everything just clicks. I just need to practice. And I’ve realized that I don’t need epic, 300 foot long toss sessions to do so. It’s not a question of arm strength; it’s a question of ingraining the proper delivery into my muscle memory.
Therefore, I’m going to start heading to a local softball field on my own a couple of days a week and throw bag after bag of balls into the fence while practicing my mechanics. I can no longer get to the point I need to be by throwing twice a week off a mound. I need more consistent throwing time. I don’t have the natural talent to throw at the velocity I need, so I’m going to have to get there by sheer volume of reps.
If this quest was a Rocky movie, I would be firmly entrenched in the montage portion of the film right now, about halfway through the beautiful strains of Gonna Fly Now. I know what I need to do to defeat my opponent, now I’m starting to put it together, slowly but surely. Soon, I’ll be climbing a 50,000 foot mountain in Russia Moscow
To throw 88 MPH you need speed... you ain't got it. And your shoulders can't take the pounding, so hard Crossfitting is out. You've got a bum wrist and you've got callouses on both of your hands. So what we'll be calling on is good, old fashioned, Sandy Koufax pitching mechanics. Technique, heavy duty, cast iron body motion that's going to produce a pitch so fast it's going to rattle the batter's ancestors. Every time you throw a fastball it's going to feel like trying to kiss an express train travelling slightly faster than 88 MPH (pain-inducing neck crack). Yeah!
ReplyDeleteLet's start building some hurtin' bombs.