- Jun 18, 2010
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An assistant coach on DDs team advocates choking up on the bat and shortening the swing on a 2-strike-count. Is this a good idea, and if so, how do you coach it and what does the 2-strike-count swing look like?
2 strike swing
- Thread starter knightsb
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- Jan 25, 2011
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IMO,you change nothing,if you put the hard work into batting why change just because of two strikes.Choking up on the bat for what? Too hit a weak ground ball to the infeild,just so you can say you made contact. Have faith in your batters.
- Aug 10, 2010
- 43
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Depends on the game situation. If runners are on and it is a dominating pitcher, just putting something in play may have benefits. I always advocated opening the stance a little bit to better see the ball with two strikes and focus on making contact in some way especially to advance the runner(s). Just my two cents....
- Jun 18, 2010
- 2,615
- 38
Just found Marc on YouTube
I agree with Sam. In softball there is more value to just putting the ball into play due to the shorter base distances. At the very least more likely to advance a runner.
IMO though it's a very difficult skill that needs to be practiced. If it's just an afterthought, something the 3rd base coach yells down to the batter, it's going to be tough to execute against a dominant pitcher.
IMO though it's a very difficult skill that needs to be practiced. If it's just an afterthought, something the 3rd base coach yells down to the batter, it's going to be tough to execute against a dominant pitcher.
We teach attack mode. Something along the lines of what Screwball posted but it isn't a slap. Bustos talks about it in her camps.
Howard Carrier has taught it for years. Tim's dd ( Boulderdad ) is a master at it. I think her swing is posted on this site.
Howard Carrier has taught it for years. Tim's dd ( Boulderdad ) is a master at it. I think her swing is posted on this site.
This is one of my favorite subjects and something I work on with my DD. Ted talks about it in "TSOH".
"Psychologically, becoming a good two-strike hitter inspires confidence. A batter knows he can still hit with authority. He learns, as I did, that he can cut strike outs to less than 50 a year. He can bat 20 to 30 points higher. In 1957, when I hit .388, I got a lot of my big hits on two-strike pitches. In fact, most of my career I was an effective two-strike hitter-not so great a percentage of home runs, but a high average of hits on two-strike pitches." -- Ted Williams
...then in the next sentence he gives us the key to effective two-strike hitting...
"Harry Heilmann told me years ago that when he learned the inside-out swing and knew he could hit the inside pitch to right field, he quit worrying about two-strike pitches." -- Ted Williams
Ted advocated that hitters think in terms of making everything quicker when they got two-strikes. His suggestion was to choke up a little bit and to quit trying to pull the ball. He recommended hitters think about hitting the ball back up through the middle and having the thought of impacting the ball at a 90 degree angle from the direction of the pitch. He called it an inside-out swing. The idea with two strikes is to shorten up or quicken up, so you can wait longer and therefore get fooled less. The way you do that is to keep a really tight hand path and try not to extend your arms much into contact, or at all.
IMO Epstein's "Torque" and "Enforcer" drills do a really good job of teaching kids the 90 degree impact angle swing that Williams advocated with two-strikes. My DD started doing Epstein's drills at age 9 and if they are done correctly they will give the kids the feel of a very short and quick swing.
"Psychologically, becoming a good two-strike hitter inspires confidence. A batter knows he can still hit with authority. He learns, as I did, that he can cut strike outs to less than 50 a year. He can bat 20 to 30 points higher. In 1957, when I hit .388, I got a lot of my big hits on two-strike pitches. In fact, most of my career I was an effective two-strike hitter-not so great a percentage of home runs, but a high average of hits on two-strike pitches." -- Ted Williams
...then in the next sentence he gives us the key to effective two-strike hitting...
"Harry Heilmann told me years ago that when he learned the inside-out swing and knew he could hit the inside pitch to right field, he quit worrying about two-strike pitches." -- Ted Williams
Ted advocated that hitters think in terms of making everything quicker when they got two-strikes. His suggestion was to choke up a little bit and to quit trying to pull the ball. He recommended hitters think about hitting the ball back up through the middle and having the thought of impacting the ball at a 90 degree angle from the direction of the pitch. He called it an inside-out swing. The idea with two strikes is to shorten up or quicken up, so you can wait longer and therefore get fooled less. The way you do that is to keep a really tight hand path and try not to extend your arms much into contact, or at all.
IMO Epstein's "Torque" and "Enforcer" drills do a really good job of teaching kids the 90 degree impact angle swing that Williams advocated with two-strikes. My DD started doing Epstein's drills at age 9 and if they are done correctly they will give the kids the feel of a very short and quick swing.
- Mar 31, 2012
- 71
- 0
We try and teach them the concept of being able to "spoil" a good pitch with two strikes, the low outside fastball-strike you couldn't reach in your regular stance isn't something you can afford to watch go by now. toe in, choke up, crowd the plate is the old school approach.
IMO choking-up should be left up to the player. I see so many girls in HS and at tournaments choking-up as part of their normal swing, I couldn't tell the difference one way or the other. IOW, they are always choked-up. I also don't think choking-up 1/2 to 1 inch will lead to a weak hit if the ball is hit square. The bats are just too hot. You might not hit it to the fence, but surely you can hit a line drive through the infield. It seems to me the number one objective with two-strikes should be to not get fooled. IOW, you are trying to increase your chances of hitting the ball square by being quicker, thus giving yourself more time to read the pitch. In my experience, most weak hits are due to the batter not hitting the ball square because they weren't able to time the pitch correctly.
How do you feel about swinging inside out, back through the middle, with a 90' contact angle with less than two strikes?
