The Chinese Jump Rope, this is mandatory that my students set this up, do not practice without it. This is for our accuracy; this is also for our movement. Take a Chinese Jump Rope, a kid's toy and string it across two Tees or whatever else you want to use. Knee height, the bottom of the strike zone, set it up five-feet in front of the plate. Okay, I use this because when a ball hits it, it flies right through it, it does not deflect like normal rope would, and that's much safer for our catchers. Okay.
On your fastball, topspin drops, that's the movement we expect with pitchers with topspin, fastballs and drop balls. I have my pitchers aim at the rope. The ball with hit it or skim over it and the dropping action will take effect. Time the ball, gets to the catcher, boom, catches it low out of the strike zone.
Five feet out, the batter started to bring the bat forward, five feet later the plain of the pitch has dropped. We use this on fastball, drop ball, change-up should drop, drop-curve should drop, we would like to keep our screw ball nice and flat and not let it rise. We are going to use the rope on every pitch except the rise ball.
Let me guess we could do even low rises with the low rope; hit the rope, nice, look at that. Five feet out, that ball was in the strike zone above the knee, and then the catcher caught it at ground level. And these are fast balls. Fast balls have topspin and should have natural dropping action. Nice, good job Kacie!
One of the last things, I would like pitchers to tell themselves as they go into their pitch is hit the rope. It's a very positive visual, very positive outcome to that pitch and it's amazing how many times to get close to that rope when we tell them to.
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