Portable pitching machines provide an alternative over regular commercial baseball pitching machine to a batter. They are compact, relatively less expensive, and easier to operate. They also give variable speeds and use batteries instead of heavy motors. They also are convenient to use because they are adjustable and used for the purpose of fielding and hitting practice.
The major disadvantages with commercial pitching machines are that they pitch balls at a constant flight path, fail to pitch balls at a variety of pitching speeds and pitching locations, thereby depriving the batter of increasing their versatility. They are extremely expensive because of the expensive equipment requirement such as real baseballs and softballs and they also require nettings and batting cage mats to contain the balls. They need to be powered with an electric motor which makes it bulky.
Portable cheap baseball pitching machines overcome the above disadvantages posed by commercial pitching machines or you can get a kids pitching machine too. They tap the need of a light weight machine that can be used in the backyard because of small budgets, young players and small backyards. Zooka 740 portable pitching machine is an example of a portable pitching machine. It is equipped with an internal battery. This makes it extremely suitable for usage in places where external power outlets are difficult to find. A fully charged battery is capable of pitching around 400 balls before it requires a recharge. They are mounted on a tripod whose height can be adjusted depending on the age and height.
It is very easy to set up and takes only a few seconds. They are capable of pitching a wide variety of balls such as baseballs, tennis balls and rubber balls. However, it is incapable of pitching large softballs. Also, its quality in throwing sliders and curveballs is slightly low. It is capable of pitching only fastballs but at a wide variety of speeds. It can throw balls at a speed ranging between 10 miles per hour to 65 miles per hour. Depending on the speed of the pitch it can pitch the ball slightly higher or lower. If it is set up to pitch the ball at the same speed, it will pitch it with utmost consistency and accuracy. It is equipped with a large number of safety features such as access code that needs to be entered before it starts firing balls and if left unused for some time it gets automatically switched off.
One of the disadvantages with portable pitching machines is that they can hold less number of balls than a large pitching machine.
