Major Leaguer Pedro Martinez Does This. It's How He's So Accurate With His Pitches. What About You?

As you may know, the very best pitchers in the major leagues -- and at any level, really -- are those who can spot a fastball on the corners of the plate for a strike.

They're guys like Pedro Martinez, at right, who'll nibble with their fastball to good hitters, and then bust one up and in when the pitching situation calls for it. (Not to hit the batter, of course, but just to let the batter know that you own both sides of the plate, not him. This is especially effective if you notice the hitter leaning or cheating to the outside part of the plate.)

Throwing strikes is one thing, but pitching to both sides of the plate is really what pitching savvy is all about. So how can you become a little more accurate throwing to both sides of the plate? Let's start on the outside.

My former coach Bill Thurston, a pitching consultant at American Sports Medicine Institute (ASMI), in Birmingham, Ala., says that the outside fastball for a strike "is the most difficult baseball pitch to throw in baseball because more timing's involved with the trunk."

That's because in order to throw a good, hard fastball to the outside part of the plate (which is across your body and across the strike zone) you have to rotate your torso, trunk, and lower body a little quicker. You should still land in-line to the target -- and have the same throwing motion and follow-through, etc. --  but you'll want to focus on speeding up your trunk rotation just a bit. This will, in turn, speed up the horizontal rotation of your shoulders.

When throwing to the inside part of the plate, though, try to slow down your trunk rotation, while keeping you other body mechanics the same.