A good fastball can get you a long way in baseball. If you really want to become a complete pitcher, however, you will need a few other pitches to complement your fastball. Each pitcher and pitching coach has their own philosophy when it comes to which baseball pitches are best.
There are three basic categories of baseball pitches; fastballs, breaking ball, and off-speed pitches. Fastballs are usually the highest velocity baseball pitch that a pitcher has. They are mostly straight pitches, although some types of fastballs have some movement. Breaking balls are thrown at slower speeds but have significantly more movement.
Here we will discuss nine of the most common baseball pitches. Each one has its advantages and disadvantages. Although there are many different baseball pitches, most pitchers focus on three or four and try to master them. The four-seam fastball is the most common pitch in baseball.
It is the straightest pitch with the highest velocity. The four-seam fastball is thrown with backspin and sometimes appears to rise, although this is an optical illusion.
In reality, it just drops less than other pitches which gives the illusion of rising. The pitcher releases the four-seam fastball with a neutral wrist position so that his fingers are on top of the ball and his thumb is below. It gets its name from the fact that when the pitcher releases the pitch, it rotates with backspin and all four seams rotate against the air. The two-seam fastball is also a high-velocity pitch, but usually a few miles per hour slower than a four-seam fastball.
