3-Finger Splitter

[Orange 26]

My son who is now 11 did a great job pitching this season. As most boys his age he was fascinated with the potential of the curve ball. He and I spoke about it and in the end he decided that he's too young to throw it. I was very happy with that decision. He had a good 2 and 4 seam fastball and changeup of course but I found another pitch that he liked throwing, a 3-finger splitter.

He uses it when he gets ahead in the count and when it works it's fun to see the hitters leaning forward mid-swing as the pitch drops right in front of them. It's basically the same as the regular two finger splitter except he splits with his index and ring finger and the middle finger is in the middle like a guide.

Towards the end of the season he threw it a few times in games and it got stuck in his hand resulting in ball rolling the last quarter of the way to the plate. That embarrassed him and he almost gave it up. I encouraged him to keep practicing it and he used it in the final couple of games very effectively. It was fun to see it working and his teammates faces after the inning as they talked about how far the ball drops. Like a good fish story the ball drops farther and farther as they recall the batter swinging in vain.

It's really a pretty easy pitch to use and teach. If you have a kid who can throw decent fastballs for strikes its a real good change of speed pitch.