Breaking pitches aren’t breaking news in youth baseball. But it wasn’t that long ago when children throwing curveballs was like a pretend secret, sitting there in plain sight. Everybody knew it was happening but only a few acknowledged it publicly.

You’d hear things like, “Wow, look at the movement on that kid’s changeup.”

Anecdotal evidence suggested that throwing curves before reaching puberty was very dangerous — a serious injury and arm surgery waiting to happen.

Because of this, some coaches and parents limited their young pitchers to fastballs and changeups. The idea was if you’re good enough, that’s all you need. Many continue to think that way, although scientific research supports that kids won’t break their arms because they throw breaking pitches.

And, if you want to compete, mastering the deuce might help.

It worked for Hilo, when it won the state tournament July 25, with a 6-3 championship game victory over Honolulu. Hilo will now try to make it five West Regional championships in a row for teams from Hawaii, and earn the trip to the Little League World Series that comes with it.

“Hilo’s a very good team with a lot of talent,” said Gerald Oda, who led Honolulu teams to LLWS championships in 2018 and 2022, but is coaching a different age group this year.

In the state championship game, Hilo left-hander James Nishimura was credited with keeping the Honolulu lineup off-balance by mixing curves and fastballs for six innings.

“A few years ago Little League looked into banning curveballs,” Oda said. “They authorized Dr. (James) Andrews to do a study.”

The study, conducted by the American Sports Medicine Institute, where Andrews is medical director, came to these scientific conclusions: Injury risk is not based on what type of pitch you throw. It’s more about how much you pitch, if you pitch with proper mechanics, and if you get enough rest between outings.

Andrews is widely considered the world’s top expert on pitching injuries. The results of the study — which tracked the same subjects for 10 years — went against his hypothesis that throwing curveballs before age 13 increases injury risk.

The study showed that curveballs, thrown properly, did not put more stress on young joints than fastballs. A second five-year study produced similar results in 2011.

The data from both studies indicated the worst enemy of young arms is overuse. It led to Little League switching from innings limits to pitch-count limits. As anyone who watches baseball knows, an inning can last anywhere from three pitches to infinity — and in youth baseball, it often seems closer to the latter.

Proper rest is a key component to the pitch-count formula.

“A lot of coaches don’t like it, but I think the pitch-count rule is one of the best changes in Little League,” Oda said.

It forces teams to develop more pitchers, rather than relying on a couple of workhorses — and decreases the chance of those workhorses requiring surgery before they even get close to high school baseball.

As for curveballs, some of Oda’s 12-and-under pitchers over the years have thrown them and some haven’t.

“It’s case-by-case,” he said. “The most important thing is they learn the proper way to throw a baseball, and a fastball. After that you can start getting into other pitches.”

Andrews and the ASMI study “reassured us,” Oda said. “The whole thing is that you teach them the right way.”

The most important breaks aren’t those of the pitches, anyway. Enlightened coaches like Oda know it’s those between mound appearances, and the long one they insist their players take from throwing baseballs at all, every year.