"couldn't hit her because she was so slow"

[29dad]

If I hear this excuse ONE MORE TIME I think I am going to lose it. Make an adjustment! Or blame yourself for being an incomplete hitter. But to blow it off and "blame" the pitcher drives me nuts.

 

[Quake Softball]

Amen!!! Been down that road one too many times.

 

[Hoover's Dad]

I dont think the girls come up with this excuse, but they hear all the parents or coaches making this excuse. Then the girls start taking on the excuse of "it was too slow".

 

[Atlantabell]

Yeah, I hear this all the time. My response is the same as what 29Dad said. Players need to make an adjustment. I also think that parents love to make excuses and the kids pick up on it.

 

[SoCalASABlue]

Unfortunately DD's team lost a lot of games like this - including a crucial one yesterday in the TCS World Series. And as a coach, you can tell them until you're blue in the face to make adjustments but ultimately it's up to the players. And you can't bench the whole team for not listening...

 

[CoogansBluff]

Excuses are such bad habits. Even as a parent, I have to resist the ocassional urge to tell somebody why my DD wasn't 100 percent on that play.

What's funny to me is how many parents will say that their kid hits faster pitching better than slower pitching. I do the books for my team. This theory very rarely holds up to closer inspection when there are enough at-bats to compare. You might hit faster pitching that's right down the pike better than slow pitching on the inside corner at the knees, but the rest is B.S., imo.

 

[GOINGDEEP]

I've seen a pitcher with 3 kinds of slow ( slow, slower, slowest ) almost beat a 18 Gold team in a tourney last year. ( 1-0 ) Gold team just could not adjust to her, went to small ball the last 2 innings and push a single run across for the win.

There is a member on here that's DD will be a freshman in our HS district in the 2013 season. We kinda kept each other informed of the teams and during district playoffs. ( the division zoning for his school is hard on them because they are 2 hours away, where the other 4 schools are much closer, Division 1 AAA ) Their ace pitcher had to have surgery mid season and another pitcher stepped up.

She didn't have near the speed of the ace but she did very well. In district playoffs our first time facing her we barely won 3-2. We could not adjust to the lack of speed. The next night she BEAT and ELIMINATED probably the second toughest HS not only in the district but probably in the closest 4-5 counties. They couldn't adjust to the speed.

So the next game was for the championship, us and them. BUT we had made some hitting adjustments beforehand. We told the girls that when she was at her 90 degree angle on her release to say "one" out loud and then swing. Just a mental timing tool. We run ruled them in the 4th for the win. Same team and pitcher we had just barely beat before by a one run squeaker.

 

[Michael N]

It depends on the palyers age and experience level as to whether they are successful at adjusting to a slow pitcher . My DD's 12u team played a team this year who's pitcher had an extremely unusual wind up and a slow pitch that arced in like an adult slowpitch ball would . The girls simply could not make the adjustment so their coach finally had them slash (show bunt and then pull back and swing) which helped some . I think its pretty easy to sit back and tell the kids they need to make an adjustment but I am guessing that if they could do it easily , they would . Girls who are playing travel ball tend to be pretty competitive kids who are not trying to do poorly , maybe setting up a pitching machine to throw really slow pitches every once in a while would help girls wrap their head around how to hit a slow pitcher successfully .

 

[Atlantabell]

I have never found that the pitching machine helps with this ( actually, I don't think it helps with hitting at all and we very rarely use it). We do teach kids to make adjustments in practice by adjusting the speed of our batting practice pitching speed and location. The one thing I find is that the kids get frustrated because they THINK they should hit this kind of pitching hard. When they get frustrated, it because more of a mental attitude that they need to adjust as well as their approach at the plate. So, we do a lot of work on how to step back and adjust mentally. It's just difficult for younger players to do. Ours are 14 U and, while they are getting there, we still have a lot of work to do! Just one more area to work on!

 

[chinamigarden]

It depends on the palyers age and experience level as to whether they are successful at adjusting to a slow pitcher . My DD's 12u team played a team this year who's pitcher had an extremely unusual wind up and a slow pitch that arced in like an adult slowpitch ball would . The girls simply could not make the adjustment so their coach finally had them slash (show bunt and then pull back and swing) which helped some . I think its pretty easy to sit back and tell the kids they need to make an adjustment but I am guessing that if they could do it easily , they would . Girls who are playing travel ball tend to be pretty competitive kids who are not trying to do poorly , maybe setting up a pitching machine to throw really slow pitches every once in a while would help girls wrap their head around how to hit a slow pitcher successfully .

the problem with that kind of pitcher is the girls have probably been told that on a slow pitcher to move up in the box. But at the front of the box a pitch that crosses the plate as a strike is still head high, and the girls end up making bad swings. They have to actually move back so they can hit it belt high.