The Proper Grip for a Curveball

The Proper Grip for a Curveball by Nate Barnett

Over the course of history, the curveball has been a major part of many pitchers bag of pitches. While this is a greatly necessary pitch, it does require that you understand basic pitching mechanics to avoid injury and incorrect throwing of this pitch.
In order to grip a curveball correctly, you’ll need to put your index and ring finger on the opposite seam as your thumb. The end result is that your index finger and thumb have split the baseball in half. It is also important to place some light to medium pressure on your thumb and middle fingers. Your index finger with this grip should remain lightly rested on the baseball.

If you are just learning the curveball grip, one technique is to slightly raise your index finger off of the baseball to insure that you do not apply any pressure with it. If too much pressure is placed on the baseball you’ll end up getting poor rotation and throw the ball sharply into the dirt.

Now that you have a basic understanding of how to throw a curveball, it’s important that you do not throw this pitch too much until you have proper pitching mechanics intact. First, if you have poor pitching mechanics, you’ll end up tipping the batter off that you are throwing a curveball and not a fastball. Secondly, with a lack of understanding you may vary your arm speed with a curveball as opposed to a fastball. This is a big no no. The only thing that changes is your wrist and forearm angles. Do not snap your wrist upon release of a curveball, instead, let the ball roll off the index finger. The will work efficiently if the outer side of your hand is facing the hitting at release.

Young pitchers need to be monitored closely as to how many curveballs are thrown each game. Coaches and parents should make sure that their athletes throw no more than 15%-20% curveballs. If your young pitcher begins to have some early success with the curveball, he may tend to want to throw the pitch more. For the sake of his arm, prevent this from happening by regulating his curveball pitch count.

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