During the offseason, we worked really hard on some of the fundamentals of hitting. I will go through some of the things we worked on regarding “checking in” to the batter’s box – we cover “A thru Z”.
a) Grip – down to knob of bat if you want more power, but not in practice; otherwise you will go through a lot of batting gloves. The last knuckle on the bottom hand and the first knuckle on the top hand must be lined up perfectly. The bat must be above pads on top hand (to allow us to have smooth, quick, powerful hands and to get to “spank” position with top hand). We want to push or drive through the ball, against the pressure into the ground we’ve built up through our back foot “killing the bug”.
b) Width of Stance – Start with your belly button lined up with the back corner of the plate. Make a fist with each hand and put the fists back to back so the elbows are parallel to ground. Now place one foot under each elbow and this will give you your width and a strong foundation. Without putting our legs into the hit, we may hit it, but not very far.
c) Feet – pigeon-toed to transfer balance through balls of feet, feet turned inward slightly (to concentrate our energy towards the plate) and pressing firmly into the ground through balls of feet. Also, set up lightly open versus closed (open means the front foot is a little further away from the edge of the plate than the back foot).We either want to be slightly “open” in our stance or have the feet parallel. We either want to start with a “closed” stance, because it will encourage us to spin as we swing. It can also cause us to sit (rear end outside the heels), pull off the ball (especially inside low), and lose the energy we are trying to put into the ball.
d) Knees turned inward slightly, creating pressure between knees and not collapsing us into a sit position.
e) Tall – maintain a vertical line (one of two that we are trying to establish) from our chin to belly button. Do not lean back as you hit; this disconnects the legs from your hit, except on pitches up and in and up and middle. Leaning back on the middle and low height pitches leads to ground balls or strikeouts.
f) Lean (do not bend) at waist – After leaning, you should be able to put the bat in your front hand. (left for right handed batter) and touch the middle of the plate. To check if you are a good distance away, take an actual swing and stop the bat over the plate. The end of the bat should extend on the other side of the plate just a little (about a half-inch), but the majority of the “meat” of the bat should be covering the plate. The trademark should not be over the meat of the plate.
h) Distance from Pitcher – When hitting off the tee with two plates back to back, line up the belly button with the “V” at the back of the plate.
i) Ready Position – firm pressure into the ground and between the knees. The front arm makes a rectangle and the forearm is about one to two inches away from the body, with both hands having a power angle at the wrists, knuckles aligned, and the back elbow below top hand.
j) When the pitcher’s front foot lands (left foot for right handed pitcher), we should step (stop) and get to a strong “kill-the-bug” position (back knee is pushing into front arch, and we have a straight line from the back knee up through the back hip and up to the back shoulder). This will establish one of two vertical lines we are trying to establish. We will hit against this back vertical line (rebound off of it actually) and hit through the second line. (The second vertical line is the one through our nose, chin, and belly button). We want the bat head to go through this vertical line first, instead of our hands. This will give us the feeling of hitting “across our body” and allow us to “shine the flashlight” at the middle infielders.
k) When the bottom half of the body “kills the bug,” the top half of the body turns the front shoulder in slightly towards the ball, and the hands go strongly to the trigger position (with resistance when you get to the trigger position). Now we are loaded up and ready to explode into and through the ball! The front arm should still be a rectangle, not a straight line.
l) We want to stay energized “over” the plate through the hit. Key phrase from the third base coach could be “Get over it! ”
m) We want to avoid straightening the front knee/leg during the swing/hit. (This causes us to sit and pull off the ball, losing our energy we are saving for the ball). When we do pull off the ball, the first thing we usually do is scoot closer to the plate. Now, not only can’t we hit the outside pitch, but now we can’t hit the inside pitches either. This is when we hit .300 at best, because we can only hit the middle pitches if we are lucky. When we pull off the pitches, we need to move our feet away more (a half-inch at a time), so we can lean over the plate and hit by reaching through the ball with our hands/bat while our rear end stays inside the heels of our feet. It is the “killing-of-the-bug” and keeping our rear end inside our heels that allow us to drive outside pitches to right field and to hit low pitches out of the park.
n) We want to point the end of the bat at either the shortstop, pitcher or second baseman like it is a flashlight. We should not let go of the bat as we get the bat head in front of our hands smoothly. When we get the bat head forward of our hands, we can then rebound against that back vertical line and drive the ball through the front vertical line (from chin to belly button).
o) We are trying to swing slow with our body so we can maintain our balance and be quick and powerful with our hands. (If our shoulders are fast, we lose our balance and our hands/wrists will be slow –not good). Our hands are needed for balance at this point, versus being able to snap through the ball. When we swing with our shoulders, we pull the bat through the strike zone until our shoulders turn far enough to get our back arm long. Then we have something to hit against, but it’s just a wall now versus the catapult we are trying to create.
p) We used a pitching machine at medium speed to force us to hit with technique, not just with “contact” with the ball (which requires no technique) and relies on luck and allows us to hit .300. This is not a big deal when the potential is to hit .750 plus.
q) Once we contact the ball, we want to stay in contact with it while we move the hands to the “spank” position – the longer we stay in contact with the ball, the more we can push or drive it off the end of the bat, just like a catapult. Our wrists are the fulcrum point of the catapult.
r) We want to keep track of our line drive hits and test ourselves often to see how we do with the number of hits out of 10 pitches (after a few practice hits). We usually do this every time we hit off the machine, and the machine is set to give us a pitcher at 55 miles per hour (average college speed).
s) The team should bat .300 plus, and we should strive to be over .400 hitters.
t) After the swing, we should be either balanced with our energy over the plate, or off balance and falling towards the plate. If we are right handed, this means we are falling towards first base, and in fact will get there faster.
u) If we want to check our balance, we should be able to reload to the trigger position quickly and smoothly and bring the bat right back through the path we were just on to hit the ball off the machine or off the tee again. A goal to shoot for is to be able to do this 10 times in a row, and hit five-plus line drive hits past the pitching machine. Ground balls, pop-ups and foul balls count as outs. A further challenge is to hit those line drives into the outfield grass. Anything in the infield is an out. When you consistently get to five-plus hits out of 10, then you have the confidence to do it in the games.
v) When we are too close to the plate, straightening our front knee/leg, spinning our shoulders too fast and clubbing the ball, this is one way to work on not doing these things. Place a dimpled ball on top of a Gatorade bottle (plastic) and put it just in front of the plate. See if you can hit the ball off that bottle and cause the ball to be a low line drive that goes right over the shortstop’s head and falls into the gap before a fielder can get to it. We call this a “rocket shot”.
w) The reason for leaning over slightly towards the plate when in the “ready position” of our stance is three-fold:
- It keeps the energy from our body concentrated over the plate, so we can put this body energy into the ball through our bat.
- It allows us to react quicker to an inside pitch that is heading right for us – all we have to do is lean back away from the plate, versus having to “dance” out of the way when our feet are too close to the plate.
- It allows up to see the top of the strike zone better so we can lay off of pitches above our belly button, versus swinging at them when we are too close and either standing straight up or in a sitting position. From this position, we cannot tell if those pitches are high and therefore swing at them.
x) When we are starting the game, and before we have determined the pitcher’s speed and ability to pitch inside, outside, low or high, the best place to start is with our belly button on the back corner of the plate. This way we give no advance information to the pitcher and catcher. For example, if we line up with our belly button at the front edge of the plate, we are telling the pitcher and catcher to throw fast, inside and up. If we are lined up with our belly button as far back as we can get it but still in the batter’s box, we are telling the pitcher and catcher to throw slow, low and outside. If we line up with the belly button on the back corner then they have to find out if low and slow is best or high and fast is best, and it usually takes about three innings versus giving them (the pitcher and catcher) this information in the first inning. This way the offense has the advantage to start the game, as opposed to the defense.
y) The on-deck circle is for getting our timing down, so when we step into the batter’s box we know the speed of the pitcher and we have practiced our timing while swinging at the pitches thrown to the previous batter. When the pitcher’s front foot hits the ground, (left foot for right handed pitchers), we should start counting 1, 2, 3, etc. to ourselves. When the pitch reaches the plate, and it is time to swing, we want to remember what the count was when we swung. Now when we go into the batter’s box to time the pitcher. Maybe we’ll be ready for that first pitch, and hey, why not hit it out of the park?
z) Hitting is the fun part of the game. Using these techniques, I’ve seen teams hit .400 and players hit .700. I’ve also seen our teams win against the favored teams in the tournaments. The other teams thought we were lucky that day and that they just had a bad day. Of course we’re going to agree with them and think to ourselves – “when they play us again, they’re probably going to have another bad day.”
Once you have energized, you have to stop thinking about your technique and just hit. If you don’t hit a line drive, then think about what might have been wrong in your technique after the at-bat. Think about the adjustment in the on deck circle, and practice it there. Once you have checked in for the next at-bat and gotten to the “energized” position, you have to stop thinking and just hit. You’ve got to be able to clear the mind and let the body focus on the pitch. You should have a count of one to three to do this. You should look like you are energized and going to hit each pitch in your at-bat. If it is a ball, then de-energize by dropping your elbows down together, and let the pitch go by. This still gives you time to swing if you determine, uh-oh, change-up.