Gotta Be the Spin

Pitching is, by definition, throwing the ball toward the plate in hopes that the batter will miss. A perfect pitch can seal a victory, or an untimely slip of the wrist can give up the winning run. Just a few millimeters can be the difference between a foul pop and a screeching line drive. It's much more than just throwing the ball — it's science.

There are five main pitches in softball: a drop ball, a rise ball, a curve ball, a screw ball and a change-up. Each pitch has different movement and, naturally, serves a different purpose. The two most obvious pitches to spot are the drop ball and the rise ball, which drop and rise respectively when reaching the batter.

A curve ball is an effective pitch to use to stay away from right-handed hitters. It starts in the zone and fades to the outside of the plate when it reaches the catcher. An effective curve can make a right-handed batter chase as it dives off the plate.

Against a left-handed hitter, the curve comes in. If the pitcher can keep the ball on the corners, it's a safe pitch. If it's up, it comes right into the hitter's power zone. A screw ball has the opposite spin and has the opposite effect when coming into the plate.

Pitchers can also mix it up — there are combinations that they can use to trick batters with something they're not used to. Off-speed pitches, such as the change-up, are used particularly to get a batter to swing out in front of the pitch.

Whether a batter is leftor right-handed is not important in softball — all pitchers sling the ball underhand, so neither batter nor pitcher has a significant advantage. Left-handed batters are not necessarily worse off against southpaw hurlers.

"It is different than baseball in that respect," head coach Maureen Barron said.

Usually, pitchers try to specialize in one or two pitches and experiment with others. Every pitcher is unique in her strengths and how she approach specific scenarios.

"Most pitchers have a couple of pitches that are really, really good; it's hard to be really good at all pitches," Barron said.

Spin doctors

So what's the secret to all the pitches?

Simple, Barron says: "It's all about the spin you put on the ball."

When a pitcher follows through, she snaps the wrist to get the ball to spin. When the ball is released, the seams catch the air in certain ways that give each pitch its characteristic effect. Where and how the wrist snaps is where the spin comes from.

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The pitcher and the catcher also have to be in tune with each other throughout the game because they communicate to select pitches. If a pitcher or catcher sees a weakness in a hitter, they try to exploit it. Also, they can try to use pitches in certain scenarios to get a key out or force a situation — forcing a pop-out when a batter is trying to bunt, for instance. The strikeout may be the sexiest statistic a pitcher can hope to rack up, but it is not always the objective. Sometimes it is even more practical to force an out another way.

Here's a scenario: there's a right-handed hitter at the plate who just pulled a pitch deep in foul territory. The pitcher saw that the batter jumped out early on the last pitch, so she decides to use an off-speed pitch to force the batter to swing ahead of the ball, netting her strike two. After the off-speed strike, the pitcher is in control and has set the batter up — for example, the pitcher could use a hard rise that the batter, still sluggish from the off-speed pitch, won't be able to catch up with.

On the other hand, say there's a count of three balls and one strike on a left-handed hitter who sent a hard line drive right back up through the box in her last at bat. The pitcher needs a strike and cannot surrender a walk. Making matters worse, she has not had a chance to gauge the batter's weaknesses and doesn't want to fire one right down the pike, so options are limited. That's when it's time for the pitcher to rely on her bread-and-butter pitch.

"We all have a certain pitch or two that we throw when we need a strike," said junior pitcher Erin Snyder, the ace of the Tigers' pitching staff.

Technicalities aside, all pitchers have to find their own ways to be successful. The basics of pitching are one thing, but only when a pitcher is able to uniquely develop her pitching style does she become great.

"It is just something we have to learn by experimenting," Snyder said. "We are so different, and we all use different pitches to be successful."