How to make a pitched ball curve to your will

Want to beryllium a pitcher? Start practicing.

Want to beryllium a large pitcher? Apply a small physics.

Sometimes a pitcher volition privation a shot to curve successful a peculiar direction. Other times they mightiness not privation immoderate notable curve.

Understanding wherefore pitches curve — oregon don’t — tin assistance you nonstop the shot connected a trajectory of your choosing. After all, the crushed a pitched shot takes the way it does is not magic. It’s science. 

Every thrown shot volition yet autumn downward, owed to gravity. We expect this. And we expect the shot to alert toward the spot wherever the pitcher aimed it. What we don’t expect are further motions: a displacement successful a ball’s way that goes farther left, right, up oregon down from wherever the pitcher aimed it — and from what gravity would person caused. Such changes to the expected formation way are called question oregon curve.

Los Angeles Dodgers shot pitcher Shohei Ohtani winds up to propulsion a transportation astatine Dodger Stadium connected June 16, 2025.Harry How/Staff/Getty Images Sport

Let’s look astatine the subject down wherefore a pitched shot takes the way it does. Along the way, we’ll larn however the pros successful baseball, fast-pitch softball and cricket grip and merchandise the shot to crook its way to their will.

The relation of spin

The astir communal happening that makes a shot curve is its spin. 

Consider a shot flying done the aerial from close to left. As it soars, the shot is spinning counterclockwise. This is known arsenic having topspin: The apical of the shot spins down successful the absorption of the ball’s flight.

As the shot travels leftward, aerial flows astir it toward the right. Some of that aerial flows nether the ball. This aerial hugs the shot and gets sped on down the shot and upward by the ball’s spin. Other aerial flows implicit the ball. This 2nd batch of aerial collides with aerial from the archetypal batch rising up down the shot — and creates a messiness supra the ball.

The aerial flowing above, beneath and astir the sides of a shot each lend to a “wake” — a analyzable travel of aerial that trails the ball. The aftermath for this topspinning shot is shifted up, supra the ball’s center.

Isaac Newton’s Third Law states that erstwhile 1 entity exerts a unit connected another, that 2nd entity volition propulsion back, exerting an adjacent and other unit connected the archetypal object. Based connected this law, if a shot pushes the aftermath of aerial upward, the aftermath indispensable propulsion the shot downward.

That propulsion connected the shot is called the Magnus effect (which creates the unit known arsenic lift). For a shot with topspin, the Magnus effect pushes downward, truthful the shot heads down. Note that the shot moves successful the aforesaid absorption arsenic the spin, and the aftermath moves successful the other direction.

But not each shot has topspin. The Magnus effect tin marque pitches crook successful different directions, too.

Let’s spot however the Magnus effect explains definite types of pitches. (You whitethorn privation to get your hands connected a shot and mitt for this part.)

Movement 101: How balls curve owed to Magnus

In baseball, pitchers propulsion curveballs with mostly topspin. Those pitches truthful mostly curve downward.

Due to gravity alone, shot pitches descend astir 1 metre (about 3 feet) arsenic they question from the pitcher’s mound to location plate. Curveballs typically driblet different 30 centimeters (1 foot) oregon much owed to the Magnus effect. That’s a lotta drop!