Keeping Your Weight Back

Todays topic will cover keeping your weight back while delivering the ball to the plate. All the kids I've worked with, lately, seem to be rushing the ball to home plate. This is a common mistake among all pitchers, not just young ones. Take a look at Eric Gagne when he was with the Dodgers. As he is coming toward home plate, he is keeping his head and all of his weight, over his back leg. This will allow him to deliver the ball to home plate with not only maximum velocity, but precision accuracy. You might ask, "What does keeping your head back have to do with you throwing with precision accuracy?" Keeping the head over the back leg has everything to do with throwing quality strikes. By keeping his head back, Gagne allows his arm to catch up, and get out in front of him, creating a consistent release point. The key to throwing strikes is finding a consistent release point.

If we take a look at Rick Ankiel, we can see the difference of having your head back (Gagne) and having your head out on your front foot (Ankiel). Ankiel, if you don't remember, was an unbelievable pitching talent, coming through the St. Louis Cardinals organization. When I took a look at his mechanics, I couldn't believe that he was able to throw as hard as he did, and as well as he did. Obviously, it was only a matter of time before his pitching mechanics caught up to him. Rick ended up having one of the biggest meltdowns in post season history, and I believe that his pitching mechanics had a lot to do with it, as well as a loss of confidence. If the head gets out on your front foot, one of two things will happen with your release point. 1) Your arm will not have enough time to catch up, causing your release point to be extremely high, thus elevating the ball in the strike zone or even landing the ball high on the backstop. 2) Your arm will compensate, rush towards home plate, causing your release point to be too far out in front, thus bouncing the ball short of the plate. Ankiel had both of these problems and, forgetting about the mental side of it, I believe this was an enormous reason why he wasn't able to throw quality strikes.