Enjoy the game.....Enjoy your season.....and most of all....Enjoy the kids; they're working hard!!!!
Avoiding Pitching Injuries Please read the following, when considering how much your pitcher will pitch..
This information comes from the American Sports Medicine Institute.
The American Sports Institue in there study on pitching injuries, strongly recommends that Coaches keep a PITCH COUNT. This study was conducted on Pitchers aged 11 & 12.There recommendation is that Pitchers should be held to a Pitch Count of 75.....
In addition, the study concluded that any Pitcher that complains of pain should be removed immediately. The reason for this, is that a child can not always differentiate the difference between soreness and pain.
If the complaint of pain or soreness is ignored, the potential is there for a serious injury.
As far as breaking pitches and other specialty pitches, these put a player at high risk for injury. The breaking pitches(Curveballs)are especially dangerous to the elbow area which could cause damage to the growth plates.
In its recommemdation, the ASMI recommended that the best 2nd Pitch is a change up. This is not only a safe 2nd Pitch, but will also improve the Pitchers performance. If a Pitcher is working off of a good fastball, it will be very difficult for a batter to adjust to a Pitch thrown 15 MPH slower.
In additiion to the above, always consider the weather conditions, is it the beginning of the season. If it is 40 degrees out and it is the beginning of the season, that Pitcher just became at higher risk for injury.
