Michael Blanchard has a habit of making life difficult for batters when it is their turn at the plate. Maybe if the ball would just travel in a flat line, they would have more success, but it doesn’t. It moves.

His father, Skip Blanchard, recalled that former Major League Baseball pitcher Jimmy Anderson once said, “I can teach people to pitch, but what I can’t teach you is natural movement.”

The natural movement and developing talent of senior pitcher Michael Blanchard recently led to Nansemond River High School’s baseball team toppling a major force in the Southeastern District, in the state and in the nation this year — Grassfield High School.

His clutch performance in the Warriors’ 1-0 victory over the Grizzlies on April 15 led to his becoming the Duke Automotive-Suffolk News-Herald Player of the Week.

Grassfield entered the game with an undefeated record and having ranked 50th in the nation on the CBS MaxPreps Xcellent 50.

Getting the win against them “felt great because of the past three years, I had always pitched against Grassfield, and I had never won against them, and last year, we just lost by barely anything,” Michael Blanchard said. “It felt great to be able to come back and win this year.”

The 6-foot-7-inch Old Dominion University commit threw all seven innings, recording nine strikeouts and allowing only three hits, and he helped his team achieve 21 outs through the use of only 71 pitches.

“He was just really good,” Nansemond River coach Mark Stuffel said. “It’s pretty awesome when you can run a kid like him out (to the mound) every other game. He’s always going to give you a chance to win. He’s a kid who seems to get stronger as the game goes on.”

He has an impressive ability to frustrate batters because of the way the ball moves through the air when he throws it, never going in a straight line. As an example, Skip Blanchard noted that his son’s two-seam fastball cuts in and down, making it difficult to make good contact with it.

When Michael Blanchard is on the mound, he does not tend to blow by people with speed, and batters will probably make contact, but “most teams hitting off him just drive the ball into the ground,” Stuffel said. “He somehow always misses the middle of the barrel on guys.”

Blanchard estimates that he got his start in the sport at the age of 6, playing T-ball in Bennett’s Creek Little League. After playing in the coach pitch and minor league divisions, he has gone on to play for a variety of travel ball teams in the area, including a Mid-Atlantic Pirates team coached by Jimmy Anderson.

Blanchard cites his father and his first hitting coach, Bobby Heff, as the two people most responsible for getting him into the sport.

Skip Blanchard has faithfully worked to equip his son with the mechanics that are said to make up 80 percent of baseball.

Helping make up the remaining 20 percent along with athletic ability is a respect for the game that prepares him mentally.

“Your mind will fail you before your body does, so if you stay out of your own head, you can do a lot more than you think,” Michael Blanchard said.

He is also fueled by a competitive fire that constantly informs his approach on the mound.

“I’m better than you, and I know that my defense has got my back,” he said, describing what he is thinking as he faces down batters. “And I know we’re going to get you out.”