The wind up and the pitch

it takes a lot of effort and talent to get the ball straight over the plate.

From screwballs to drop balls to high balls, there is a lot going on between the mound and the plate.

The difference between the pitches may not look that different to those watching from the stands, but it comes down to how the pitcher strides and how she holds the ball.

For a fastball pitch, USU pitcher Leslie Higley said you need to start with both feet on the mound.

“You have to have both feet touching the mound or else it’s illegal, which I faced a couple weeks ago,” she said.

Heather Straight, another pitcher for USU, said you have to wait for the call from the catcher, then you start your pitch.

In this case, it will be a fast pitch.

If you’re right-handed, then you will want your right foot forward she said.

The next part of the pitch Higley called the stride. She said the pitcher needs to step in as straight a line as possible toward the plate, they call it the powerline, Higley said.

If it isn’t straight, then you lose speed.

“With women, we have to use so much more of our legs, because our lower body is so much stronger than our upper body,” she said. Because of that, the pitcher turns sideways when she strides forward.

The windmill motion gives the ball more velocity. Once they get the ball to their hip, the pitcher snaps their wrist as hard as they can.

Higley said she tries to get as many seams (the stitching on the ball) rotating as possible.

If the ball is rotation a certain way, only two seams are spinning toward the batter, but if it is turned a little bit, then all four seams are rotating toward the batter.

“The more seams you can get rotating, the faster it can go,” Higley said. “You always want to try to get four seams catching the air.”

As they are bringing their pitching arm around, both Higley and Straight pull hard with their glove to get more power in the pitch. That means that quite often when they release the ball, they hit their leg.

Contrary to the popular idea. It isn’t to distract the batters, it’s just something that happens.

“I can’t stop it, I wish I could. It hurts,” Higley said.

-aedmunds@cc.usu.edu