- Jul 17, 2012
- 1,086
- 38
Our newly formed travel team played their first tournamant this past weekend. I'll preface this post by saying all of these kids are high level rec ball players. They are pretty strong athletes. They played the field pretty well, and our pitching was very strong, with a few hiccups that chalk up to nerves, and the first time in 4 months that they faced live hitting. We only averaged 4.33 runs against us, but we only scored 2.33. One of the teams had a fireballer that our kids just couldn't catch up with. It was abundantly obvious that these young ladies hadn;t seen this level of pitching in the past...or at least not very often. Our hitters would struggle mightily against our own pitching.
My question is, how do you prepare them for this? What can you do when you only have access to a smaller indoor facility that doesn't allow for live hitting. The only thing I came up with is a drill I ran a few of the girls through at my house tonight during our pitcher/catcher workout in my basement.
I stood 15 feet in front of them and whizzed wiffle balls past them. They all said there's NO WAY they can hit that...it's too fast too close. So then I told them I would count to 3 as I pitched. They needed to start the swing at 2...and I would let go at 3. It took a while... but eventually they all got the timing down. They were swinging on time. They were told to swing....regardless of where it was going...they had to swing "On Time". Then I added a twist. They still started the swing on 2, but I was going to scatter in some fake tosses, where they needed to NOT SWING...or at least check their swing. I know..it's extreme. I'm just trying to convince them that when a ball is coming at them at 55 MPH from 40 feet away, that they can't start their swing when they see that it's a strike or the ball will be in the glove before their bat crosses the hitting zone. The swing has to be started before the pitch is even released....then they need to decide if they continue the swing...or hold up. It was very successful in my mind. Just wondering what else can be done to prep these inexperienced girls for faster pitching that they aren't used to seeing? Is this even an effective drill? I just made it up last night as I was going though ideas of how the heck to help them adjust.
12U by the way...mostly '02s.
My question is, how do you prepare them for this? What can you do when you only have access to a smaller indoor facility that doesn't allow for live hitting. The only thing I came up with is a drill I ran a few of the girls through at my house tonight during our pitcher/catcher workout in my basement.
I stood 15 feet in front of them and whizzed wiffle balls past them. They all said there's NO WAY they can hit that...it's too fast too close. So then I told them I would count to 3 as I pitched. They needed to start the swing at 2...and I would let go at 3. It took a while... but eventually they all got the timing down. They were swinging on time. They were told to swing....regardless of where it was going...they had to swing "On Time". Then I added a twist. They still started the swing on 2, but I was going to scatter in some fake tosses, where they needed to NOT SWING...or at least check their swing. I know..it's extreme. I'm just trying to convince them that when a ball is coming at them at 55 MPH from 40 feet away, that they can't start their swing when they see that it's a strike or the ball will be in the glove before their bat crosses the hitting zone. The swing has to be started before the pitch is even released....then they need to decide if they continue the swing...or hold up. It was very successful in my mind. Just wondering what else can be done to prep these inexperienced girls for faster pitching that they aren't used to seeing? Is this even an effective drill? I just made it up last night as I was going though ideas of how the heck to help them adjust.
12U by the way...mostly '02s.