One of the most common questions I hear from parents of pitchers is:
“How many pitches should my daughter throw in a weekend?”
The problem is, there really isn’t one perfect number.
There isn’t a magic line where 70 pitches are perfectly safe, but pitch number 71 is suddenly too much. Age matters. Conditioning matters. Mechanics matter. How hard she throws matters. Her normal workload matters. And most importantly, fatigue matters.
Most of the conversation in softball centers around pitchers throwing too much.
And that’s important.
But there is another side of this conversation that doesn’t get talked about nearly enough.
Sometimes a pitcher can also throw too little to properly prepare for the workload she may eventually be asked to handle.
That doesn’t mean we should chase pitch counts just for the sake of reaching a number.
It means pitchers need enough quality work to develop endurance, command, confidence and the ability to compete when they are tired.
First, What Actually Counts as a Pitch?
This is where pitch counts can get misleading.
If your daughter throws 60 pitches in a game, she probably didn’t actually throw only 60 pitches that day.
She may have thrown 20 or 30 pitches warming up before entering the game.
She throws warm-up pitches between innings.
She may have thrown in the bullpen before another game.
All of those pitches matter.
Research on softball pitching workloads has shown that pitchers can accumulate significantly more total throws when bullpen work and between-inning warm-ups are included.
So when we talk about workload, I don’t want parents looking at the box score and assuming that number tells the whole story.
We need to look at the entire day and the entire weekend.
So What Is Too Many Pitches?
This is where I’m probably going to frustrate some parents.
There is no single universally accepted pitch-count number that fits every fastpitch pitcher.
Research has shown that higher pitching workloads and fatigue can be connected to pain and injury risk, but that still doesn’t give us one perfect number for every girl.
A conditioned 16-year-old pitcher who regularly throws complete games is very different from a 10-year-old who normally throws 25 pitches and suddenly gets asked to throw 100.
That’s why I pay attention to the pitcher, not just the number.
Is her velocity dropping?
Is her command disappearing?
Is her arm starting to drag?
Is she standing taller and losing her legs?
Are her mechanics noticeably different than they were earlier?
Is she telling you something hurts?
Those things matter.
There is also an important difference between being tired and being in pain.
Pitchers eventually need to learn how to compete when they are tired.
They do not need to learn how to pitch through pain.
But Can a Pitcher Throw Too Little?
Absolutely.
And this is the part I think gets missed.
Let’s say a pitcher plays a tournament all weekend and only throws 25 pitches.
Her arm certainly wasn’t overworked.
But what if she does that weekend after weekend and then suddenly the team needs her to throw 70 or 80 pitches in an important game?
What prepared her for that?
Probably not much.
Pitching is a skill, but it is also conditioning.
A pitcher has to learn what her mechanics feel like when she is fresh.
She has to learn what they feel like after 30 pitches.
She has to learn how to maintain command when her legs are getting tired.
She has to learn how to make adjustments without a pitching coach standing beside her after every pitch.
Those skills only come from repetitions.
That does not mean I want young pitchers mindlessly throwing hundreds of pitches.
I want purposeful volume.
What If She Didn’t Get Enough Innings This Weekend?
This is something we deal with all the time in travel softball.
On a recent tournament weekend, we had multiple pitchers available.
One pitcher threw well over 100 game pitches, while a couple of our other pitchers only threw around 25 to 55 pitches for the entire weekend.
There was nothing necessarily wrong with how the tournament was managed.
That’s just how softball works sometimes.
Certain pitchers get more innings.
Games end early.
Matchups change.
You get a run-rule game.
A pitcher may warm up but never enter.
Sometimes you simply don’t get the opportunity to use every pitcher as much as you planned.
But from a development standpoint, I don’t want to ignore that.
If I am developing a pitcher who eventually needs to be capable of throwing four, five or six innings when her team needs her, throwing 25 pitches over an entire weekend probably isn’t enough volume to prepare her for that responsibility.
That’s where Monday or Tuesday becomes important.
Depending on how much she actually threw, including warm-ups, and how her body feels, that can be the perfect time for a more substantial bullpen or simulated game.
Instead of saying:
“She barely pitched this weekend, so I guess she gets another light week,”
I may want that pitcher to simulate four innings early in the week.
Don’t Just Throw 70 Pitches Into a Net
There is a huge difference between throwing 70 balls in a row and pitching four simulated innings.
If I’m trying to build a pitcher’s game endurance, I want the session to feel more like a game.
Throw 15 to 20 competitive pitches.
Then stop.
Inning over.
Sit down for several minutes.
Get some water.
Relax.
Then get back up.
Warm back up.
And pitch another inning.
Repeat that for three or four innings.
Now we are teaching her something much more valuable than simply accumulating pitches.
She is learning how to start, stop, recover and compete again.
That is exactly what happens in a game.
Make the Simulated Game Competitive
You can make it even better by creating counts and situations.
For example:
0-0 count: Get ahead.
2-0 count: You need a strike.
0-2 count: Execute your out pitch.
3-1 count: Attack the zone.
Runner on third: Get the strikeout.
Two outs: Finish the inning.
You can even simulate adversity.
Tell her she just walked a hitter.
Now what?
Does she get frustrated?
Does her command disappear?
Or can she reset and attack the next hitter?
That is pitching development.
Track her strike percentage.
Watch her mechanics.
Watch what happens to her velocity and command as she gets deeper into the simulated game.
Those are the things I care about.
Being Rested and Being Prepared Are Not the Same Thing
This is probably the most important point in this entire article.
Being rested and being prepared are not the same thing.
We should absolutely protect young pitchers from overuse.
But if a pitcher consistently throws only 20 or 30 competitive pitches every weekend and then suddenly we need her to throw 80 pitches in a championship game, we can’t be surprised if her mechanics and command begin to fall apart.
We asked her body to do something we never trained it to do.
That’s why I believe workload has to be looked at over the course of the week, not just Saturday and Sunday.
If she throws heavily during a tournament, then Monday and Tuesday may need to be lighter.
If she barely gets into the circle all weekend, Monday or Tuesday may be the perfect time for a simulated game.
Game innings and practice innings should work together.
Don’t Try to “Make Up” Pitches
There is an important difference between adding appropriate work and simply trying to reach some imaginary weekly number.
If your daughter threw 25 pitches Sunday, I am not saying she automatically needs to throw another 75 on Monday.
That completely misses the point.
We evaluate the pitcher.
How does she feel?
How many pitches did she throw warming up?
How much has she been throwing recently?
What is her normal workload?
What are we preparing her to be capable of doing?
Then we build the session around that.
Workload should be built gradually.
I would much rather see a pitcher develop a consistent weekly throwing routine than bounce from almost no pitching one week to an enormous workload the next.
Quality Still Matters More Than the Number
At Velocity Pitching, I care a lot about strike percentage and command.
If a pitcher throws 100 pitches but 50 of them are noncompetitive balls, I’m not impressed just because she reached 100 pitches.
I would rather see 60 focused, competitive pitches where she is hitting locations, changing speeds, working counts and learning how to pitch.
Every pitch should have a purpose.
Volume can help build endurance.
But volume without purpose can simply reinforce bad habits.
We want pitchers developing speed, confidence and command.
Building endurance is only part of developing a pitcher. She also needs the confidence to trust her mechanics and compete when things get difficult. We talked more about that in our article, Why Young Pitchers Need Confidence More Than Perfect Mechanics.
Prepare Her Before the Team Needs Her
Parents sometimes wait until their daughter suddenly starts getting more innings before worrying about endurance.
By then, it’s too late.
You build the pitcher before the big weekend.
If we want her capable of throwing four innings, we have to gradually prepare her to throw four innings.
If she isn’t getting those innings in games yet, create them in practice.
Simulate hitters.
Simulate counts.
Take breaks between innings.
Track strike percentage.
Watch her mechanics.
Teach her how to compete when she starts getting tired.
Because eventually there is going to be a weekend when her coach hands her the ball and needs her to keep pitching.
That isn’t the time to find out whether she was prepared.
The work should have already been done.
The goal isn’t to throw as many pitches as possible.
The goal is to build a pitcher who can handle the pitches she needs to throw — with confidence, command and healthy mechanics.