Always swinging late--never loading!

[coach james]

In my experience, its a very common issue with girls coming out of slow pitch. In the past she had time to wait on the ball before she decided to swing whereas now she needs to starting sooner. Bottom line here is the "swing" needs to be separated into two phases the linear and rotational. The linear phase has to be started during the delivery and it's DURING this phase that she should be recognizing if its a hittable pitch or not, and not waiting until its at the contact point. If its a strike then she is already in position to rotate and finish the swing, if its out of her zone then all she does is keep the barrel back.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

Wouldn't hurt to have her listen to Enquist on the topic ....

 

[RubberBiscuit]

Along these lines but maybe needs to be a seperate topic (don't want to hijack more than I already do - I am "bad" like that - I apologize....)

BUT -

With DD being 17 now & I look back at her progress with a bat in her hands (this is weird as I am always sooo focused on typing about her pitching) I saw a few BIG milestones.

First - getting to the point where she stopped looking at really good pitches (this is the beginners "pray for a walk" stage - this was early)
Second - getting her to "show that power and pull some ropes down the 3rd base line" (as a rhb). At one point she would rarely "attack" a pitch and really jump all over it ripping it with violence (even though I know she had it in her).
Third - Then after getting her to jump all over the good pitches and pull them with anger she started to get into the age where pitchers threw everything to the outside corner to get the batter to "cast". (this was frustrating as it seemed like I just got her to pull hard line drives when pitching got better and she needed to do the right thing with constant outside strikes)
Fourth - Then an incredible batting coach (not me of course) she had two years ago that finally advanced her to the point where she will hit outside pitches "oppo" and inside pitches pulled to left. Jeesh it was a beautiful thing to witness the grasping and the conquering of this fourth step never to see a casted dribbled grounder again.

Funny hs bash (sorry SC) - Her hs coach scolds DD when she gets up against outside strike pitchers and paints it all over "oppo". HS coach will say "hey kid you were really late in your reactions today weren't ya,....what's wrong?....." sigh......

 

[Rocketech1]

Lots of reps with a paid hitting instructor, it's well worth the investment. I don't think you can do enough reps from front toss. Hittiing well is about confidence and the only way to really get confidence is by getting good instruction and practicing a lot. Her team coaches don't have enough time to teach individual hitting to any one player, there are too many other aspects of the game they need to cover and frankly most of them have no clue what proper hitting techniques are and certainly don't know how to teach them to players. All the good hitters I know work on their game outside of team practice.

 

[StingRay]

i didnt read the whole thread so if this had been asked...sorry....

has she had an eye exam? Does she swing at strikes and hit the ball in practice? If both answers are yes then its mental.. Tell her you will pay her $5 or $10 for every hit she gets....she'll start swinging and hitting....

 

[GatorGirl]

You guys are absolutely right in that she needs more practice and a hitting instructor. My other DD is about to do pitching lessons at a facility and I am thinking about have her take hitting lessons at the same time. I will just tell them this is the issue. How do you communicate that she hits decent off of coach pitch, the batting machine and the batting cages, but when she faces the pitcher she just freezes up? I hope he can figure out how to instruct her on that.

 

[Eric F]

How do you communicate that she hits decent off of coach pitch, the batting machine and the batting cages, but when she faces the pitcher she just freezes up?

This is a common issue. A hitting instructor should be able to give her the confidence in her hitting skills to be more aggressive in a game situation.

 

[Jim]

Jim, I like that drill, did you ever put a name on it?

I just call it the "throw-back drill".

 

[Jim]

I second Jim...My daughter does this exact thing; she holds the bat (with both hands) straight towards the pitcher, then when the pitcher starts her motion my DD starts her loading process by bringing the bat back and into her stance and load position all at the same time...the net result is a nice fluid swing.

She was in the habit of loading too soon where after she loaded she became a "statue" again, so we tried this to help with that and I have to say it has helped....[of course we also own the bat jack, so that helps too! ]

Thanks! It never gets old hearing that our product has helped someone!

 

[moe]

Funny story with this one. I have a paid hitting instructor for my twin DD's. First lesson actually led to late to load. He shifted her hands/arms to the correct V position and knee inside. Her back elbow up was working as her loading and she couldnt hit broad side of a barn. she was in tears last night...I felt so bad. FFS comment is really ringing true, it will get worse before better.

This is a great thread because it reminded me of the barrel at the pitcher. I did that during my slowpitch days to keep my timing. Thanks for bringing the topic up.