Here’s a phenomenon I’ve seen more than a few times since I started teaching lessons. Sometimes it takes longer for a pitcher to re-learn a pitch that has gone away than it did to learn the pitch originally.

Last year I had a couple of pitchers suddenly lose their curveballs. For no apparent reason they couldn’t couldn’t get the spin, couldn’t get the movement, couldn’t throw the pitch. We went back over all the steps, lesson after lesson, breaking it down. But the result was still the same — very little improvement. It probably took four times as long to get it back as it did to acquire it originally.

Tonight the same thing happened with a pitcher and her changeup. I first taught it to her during a tryout for my team, actually. It took her about five minutes to pick up the basics then. Tonight I was giving her a tune-up and she just couldn’t get it for the longest time. I tried all my usual tricks but they just didn’t seem to work. She finally did get it back, but it was a struggle.

I’m not sure why that happens. Perhaps when it’s new a pitcher is more open to change. But when it goes away, it goes away because the mechanics have deteriorated over time. At that point the “wrong” mechanics have become more ingrained (since she’s been using them) and thus they are tougher to overcome. Even moreso if she’s been successful in spite of the pitch not working at its optimum level, i.e. a changeup that’s too fast or a curveball that is angling in the right direction but not really breaking.

Whatever the reason, it’s probably a good indication of how important it is to be pristine in your practicing or games, lest you take yourself out of a pitch. ‘Cause once you lose the feel, it can be a long, tough road back.

Had an interesting one last night. One of my students mentioned that her HS coach (freshman level) wants her to use a different grip than the four-seam grip I’ve had her using. He (I think it’s a he) wants her to grip the ball along the runs instead. When I asked her why he wants her to do it to see if she’d been given an explanation she wasn’t sure at first. But then she remembered he’d said it would cause the ball to tail in or out.

All well and good. If you do it right that will work. But getting the ball to move away from the plate has not been the goal so far. Getting it to go where she intends it to go has been the challenge.

You see, although she is in high school she is just now learning to pitch. She’d taken lessons from someone or other a couple of years ago, but had to stop because it was hurting her wrist. (Too much emphasis on a forced wrist snap is my guess.) In any case, she has been taking lessons sporadically for the last three months or so. Most of that time was spent getting her to learn to throw the ball straight rather than having it go way out to the right every time. It was a battle, but she has finally gotten to the point where she can throw it for a strike consistently, and actually pitched a complete game not long ago.

My priority at this point is for her to develop speed to go along with it. It’s not that we haven’t emphasized that or worked toward it, but so far she hasn’t really gotten to the point mentally where she can just let go and throw. She’s still somewhat tentative. It’s getting better, but she can certainly drive her body harder and faster.

So the bottom line is, we’re still working on some fundamental issues. Encouraging her to change her grip to one that is less reliable in its result is only going to set her back, get her frustrated, and discourage her.

What her coach isn’t taking into account by showing this grip he probably heard in a clinic or saw on the Internet is her development level. It’s very important for an inexperienced pitcher to build confidence through success. As she becomes more confident she will go harder and become even more successful. And that means keeping it simple. New pitchers don’t need a lot of variables — like a ball that randomly tails off sometimes. They need to know where the ball is going when they throw it. The two-seam grip is much more appropriate for pitchers who already have good control, not those who are hoping for it.

By the way, this particular girl has a natural drop to her basic fastball. That’s probably more worth pursuing than in and out movement anyway.

Last night one of my students had one of those breakthroughs that make coaching so rewarding. Before I get into the breakthrough, allow me to give you a little background.

Rae Ann is a lefty who has been with me for a few years. Up until this year, I had her throwing a peel drop and a “cut under” curve among other pitches. The drop was ok, although it would often tend to come in a little low. She had good movement on it, though. But she really struggled to get the proper spin on the curve. She just couldn’t quite seem to get the hang of getting her arm into the proper position to get under it.

About halfway through the off-season I suggested we try throwing a curve where the hand comes over the ball instead of under. From what I saw, it seemed like that would work a little better. So we tried it. I told her flat out I didn’t have as much experience with this version, so we’d be learning together. My daughter Stefanie threw that curve when she was pitching, but I never paid much attention to the technique since I was just a bucket dad back then.

The first thing that happened is we wound up switching Rae Ann to a rollover drop. The first time she tried the curve she wound up throwing an awesome drop. It had great movement, very sharp, and came in more at the knees. She’s been throwing that ever since. But we still couldn’t quite get the sideways spin on the curve. We couldn’t really even get a drop curve spin. She pretty much came right over the top of the ball no matter what we tried.

Then last night I had an idea. We slowed down her motion, and I told her to imagine she had four foot long fingernails. Take those fingernails and trace an arc on the ground as she throws. The idea was to help her get around the ball rather than over it.

At first it had a minor effect. But as I let her work through it while I talked to her dad Matt, suddenly it came together. We got both proper spin and movement on the pitch. The cue of tracing the arc had helped her understand and visualize what she needed to do. I tried telling her before to come around the ball, but she didn’t feel it and it never helped. Having something visual, however, did seem to work.

So there you go. As a coach you’re constantly challenged to communicate techniques, ideas and other things to your players. You can’t just settle for what’s worked before. With a little persistence, and a little imagination, there’s always a way. You just have to find it. Expecting players to just “snap to” to what you’re saying is a bad way to go. Work with what they can understand and you’ll see the results.

As I have mentioned before, one of the ongoing challenges of coaching is finding new ways to say the same thing. It goes back to Einstein’s definition of insanity — doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

In the area of coaching, you will have a way of explaining something that works. Then all of a sudden it doesn’t for one student. No matter how many times you repeat the same phrase, it doesn’t seem to do any good. Insanity. So you have to find another way to obtain the results you want.

Recently I had one of those discoveries while working with a couple of kids on their rollover drops. I teach both the peel and rollover, depending on the student and which I think will work best for her. I used to teach the rollover exclusively. Now I teach more peel by far. But I still do both.

In any case, the rollover drop wasn’t quite working the way it should. It was starting too low and not breaking enough. I tried my usual explanations of what to do, but they didn’t help. Then I suggested using the wrist less and the forearm more. Suddenly it was like a lightbulb came on. By emphasizing the forearm, the hand came up higher, starting the ball around the hip, and the spin rate was greater, resulting in a flat pitch with a sharp downward break.

I don’t know if it will work for every pitcher. But it did for these two. I’ll keep using that cue — at least until someone else requires me to invent a new one.