DD can't hit slow pitchers

[EJL]

Ah yes, hitting changeups. Same trouble for her as a slow pitcher. Fortunately, very few girls in our area throw a decent one or my DD would get burned more often. If it's a really slow changeup she can make the adjustment and give it a poke. But, a decent changeup will usually get her to look really silly.

Ed

 

[Ken Krause]

Here's another thought. When I was at the NFCA coaches college, Scott Centala, former head coach over at Washington said they tell their hitters not to even worry about the changeup on their first at bat. They want them to "sit firm" on the fast stuff, and let the changeup go. That may change later in the game, depending on the situation.

 

[lhowser]

I've seen whole teams struggle with a slow pitcher which is different in some respects than the occassional change-up. I think what I've discovered is it's just not the timing of the speed. The kids have a difficult time accounting for the effects of gravity on the slower pitch. As a result they wind up reaching for ball to compensate as the pitch begins to fall more quickly than they expect. What we've done with some success is mentally adjust with a steeper bat angle as if the ball is low in the zone. helps us drive the ball vs. reaching out and cutting under the ball with a decending angle and flaring a pop up or smashing it into the ground. Both seem to occur often with the slow pitcher.

 

[Mark H]

Here's another thought. When I was at the NFCA coaches college, Scott Centala, former head coach over at Washington said they tell their hitters not to even worry about the changeup on their first at bat. They want them to "sit firm" on the fast stuff, and let the changeup go. That may change later in the game, depending on the situation.

Yes, exactly. Make them prove they can throw it for a strike before you worry about it.

 

[Ken Krause]

Great point

Yes, exactly. Make them prove they can throw it for a strike before you worry about it.

That's so true. How many times have you watched kids chase a changeup into the dirt? Or over their heads? It takes some discipline not to swing at it.

Most pitchers, though, won't throw two in a row. So even if they throw one for a strike, you can usually count on seeing a faster pitch next time.

 

[druer]

KEY - KEY - KEY POINT for DD to understand - Batters don't hit PITCHERS they hit the BALL. And unless your league is special within the country, all of the pitchers are throwing the same ball. So help her get the idea in her head that she is hitting a BALL off of a pitching machine, not a pitcher. One visual drill to aid in hitting in general is to have her narrow her focus from big to small. When the "pitcher" gets on the mound, have DD narrow her focus to only shoulders and down. Now logically that "thing" on the mound is a pitching machine and not a pitcher. When the ball is presented, the eyes narrow even more to the hip where the ball will be released from. That helps with focus in general, but also serves to eliminate a real problem with slow pitchers and that is that their motions are usually very fast, and the batters are timing their swing to the movement of the "pitcher" not "the ball." If their focus is on the release point for the "pitching machine" they won't see the movement and be fooled by it.

A drill that I do frequently with players is to toss the ball to them from the side they would normally try to pull to, but make them wait for the ball to get behind them and hit the pitch as an outside pitch instead. (I'm behind a net.) You can easily add some competition with 2 girls that struggle and setup cones and say "If you hit to the right of cone 1 you get 1 point, to the right of cone 2 you get 2 points etc. We'll alternate every X pitches, and the girl that gets X points wins."

.....Plate Batter
..........\
.............\
...............\
.................\
...................\
.....................Me tossing

Or another way to force them to wait is to play a game where you reverse the base path. With a coach tossing the ball, they hit and run to 3B, then 2B then 1B. They quickly determine if they pull the ball they are probably going to be out, so their little minds devise a sneak plan of waiting for the ball to get deeper in and hit the ball to the right side. Such smart young ladies, and they've forced themselves to wait on your slow soft tosses because its a game, and wait even longer because they want to hit to right field. You didn't have to 'force' them to do anything. Afterwords your object lesson is "shut up and quit telling me you can't hit slow pitchers. You hit my weak slow pitches and you waited long enough to hit them to the right side. So you can do it, now quit telling yourself you can't."

 

[obbay]

Lots of good info here!
DD (and everyone else) had trouble with a slow pitcher who's pitches followed an arc closer to slowpitch.
Something we did to prepare for those games that seemed to work was nothing new. I stood in the front of the batters box opposite the one she was standing in. I would reach up and drop balls for her to hit. Instead of focusing on the pitchers release point, it helped her re-focus on pitch location up close instead.

While this improved her hitting against the slow pitchers, it took awhile before she could hit them as well as she could hit regular pitchers.

 

[jabramson]

I need some addition advice. My dd is in an under 12 league and most of the pitchers her team face pitch 40 - 50 MPH fast balls that come in strait and some of the pitchers have othe misc. pitches like drop ball, rise curve and others.

Here is my question, last night we were facing a pitcher from another team that pitches much slower like maybe 30-35 MPH and has a bit of an arc to the pitch. My thought was for the girls to open up the strike zone for higher pitches like ones thought to look at eye level and still focus on hitting those. My rational is because they are making the swing/no swing decision based on where the ball will come in, since it will arc and then come down.

So am I completely off my rocker by thinking the girls should make the mental decision to swing if the ball looks like it may be a bit high on delivery and adjust on the swing to meet the ball?

 

[obbay]

We found that standing farther back in the box helped when facing pitches with a lot of arc to them. It's a different animal.

If you expect to face this type of pitching from time to time, I'd recommend incorporating it into practice on the days prior to those games.

 

[SBFAMILY]

We teach our kids to adjust to any speed of pitcher and never move them around in the box, because then you are messing with her timing when she faces a fast pitcher. Here is the drill we use to have them learn to adjust. It it called the Bonds Drill. Very easy to do in the cage and we never have kids just hit in a cage. Adjust the machine to 35. Start at home plate and every time she hits the ball, take a step forward. Continue to you get 3 strikes then start going backward on every miss. Then set the machine at 45 do the same thing. It now becomes a game and the kids have fun as they learn to adjust to different speeds.