Darvish
On January 18, 2012, Darvish signed with the Texas Rangers of the American Professional Baseball League for six years, US$56 million plus a signing bonus of US$4 million (excluding incentive bonuses), with a total contract value of US$60 million; At the same time, the Texas Rangers paid the Ham Fighters a salary of US$51.7 million, which became the highest record in the history of the Japanese professional recruitment system. At the end of last year's season, he won the American League strikeout king with 277 strikeouts. He became the second Japanese pitcher to win the American League strikeout title since Hero Nomo in 2001; he once again completed the 500K milestone with 401.2 innings this season, becoming the fastest starter to reach 500K in the history of the major leagues.
1 Darvish places his glove slightly above his chest, which is an ideal position for a pitcher. At the same time, you can pay attention to the fact that his butt is slightly opposite to the catcher, which prevents the lower body of the ball from being released early. In addition, when Japanese pitchers raise their legs, there is usually an obvious pause point. This is the process when the pitcher goes from rest to acceleration to establish the awareness of the lower body to initiate the pitching action.
2 This action of facing the batter and catcher can be said to be the most important concept in Darvish's entire pitching mechanism. During the step-over phase, he will first turn back to face the attacker. This pitching method can almost completely solve the problem of "premature left shoulder opening" of right-handers. It can suppress the problem of left and right movement of fast balls when entering the base, and is also very helpful in increasing ball speed.
3. In the past, the concept of baseball was to use the rotation of the lead hand to drive the pitch, but this action usually caused the problem of "premature shoulder turning away", in other words, the so-called body opening, which in the traditional is a very common problem in pitching mechanics. It can be seen from this picture that Darvish's left shoulder is relaxed and without excessive force. It is worth mentioning that the glove has been placed stably on the chest during the acceleration process, which will be more helpful for controlling the ball.
4. In the continuous acceleration, Darvish's pitching action is still very stable and quite balanced. In the same process, most pitchers are very easy to rush to exert force and collapse their pitching action early. It can be noticed that his elbows are always kept horizontally at the height of the shoulder line, which does not cause excessive burden and pressure on the shoulders or elbows.
Darvish adopted a 3/4 shot with his shoulders tilted slightly. At the beginning of the pitching action, the centrifugal force of the backward rotation of the waist drives the kinetic energy of the pitch, and the front foot does not fly away due to this, which shows that the strength of the lower body plays a considerable role in stabilizing the pitching action.
5. Darvish has a very good grasp of the timing of his release, and there is no premature problem. For a tall pitcher, he does have better flexibility and release posture to maintain the integrity of the pitching mechanism.
When shooting, the head, knees, and toes are in a straight line. For a pitcher, this three-point and one-line ability can best show that he has mastered the best shooting point and that his lower body can smoothly create forward force to help the pitch. Not only is the person facing the batter, but the left shoulder is not over-rotated, which is an important key to maintaining smooth balance after struggling to throw the ball.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-