Hitting pitchers with upper level movement and velocity

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sluggers

Super Moderator
Staff member
May 26, 2008
7,133
113
Dallas, Texas
Pitch selection/recognition is the most important aspect in my opinion. She has to begin to have an approach to each at bat that eliminates certain zones/pitches as long as she is at an even count or ahead.

Exactly.

She has to look for patterns and tendencies in the pitch selection.

In HS, the "elite" always have a flaw...they are not as refined as the college pitchers.

1) They tend to throw first pitch strikes.
2) Their breaking pitches don't hit the corners of the zone. The rise/drop are in the middle of the plate and the curve/screw are belt high.
3) They always throw the breaking the pitch when they are ahead.
4) They rarely have great control of their breaking pitches.
 

Chris Delorit

Member
Apr 24, 2016
343
28
Green Bay, WI
She's young, inexperienced and overwhelmed while in situations outside of her competition level comfort zone. There's alot of average players, a few above average and even fewer of skill above that.

As a freshman, she's probably experiencing all kinds of emotions and confidence swings. There's alot of peer pressure in her young HS career.

There's roughly four stages to hitting; novice (failures and changes), intermediate (less failures due to changes and confidence building), advanced (high confidence and more successes) and elite (attitude - expecting consistency in successes).

Whatever the stage you feel you daughter is currently experiencing, she just needs to practice, and practice alot. Hit, and hit alot. The game is likely very fast for her right now and with experience it should slow down over time.

As she's competing right now, she only has to speed up her decision making process. Since she always has more time to react to a pitch than she thinks she does, there's likely little reason to speed up her mechanics. In fact, over time, the idea is to slow down the entire processing of mind and mechanics into pulling the trigger. That's where fluidity and violence can occur simultaneously.

Advice: find a HS/travel, college or adult pitcher that can throw BP that challenges her "normal" comfort level. This can help in a variety of ways ... including the confidence to drive through those outside strikes with her core rather than reach or extend timidly with the arms.

During games, the easiest way to build confidence is to make contact. Simplifying the process by increasing the potential for success. Shortening the swing with low risk small ball can very quickly increase both confidence and competitive spirit. You could build from there with soft slap, working progressively uphill.

As she continues to develop as a hitter against better competition, it's absolutely imperative that she's able to identify tendencies and spin. This will help her to lessen the chance of contact and increase expected contact.

Chris
 
May 12, 2016
4,338
113
I hit against some great pitchers and like others have mentioned sequence is so important. I find loading slow and early helped me out a lot. If my sequence was correct, pitches seemed slower and there was less movement. Also, pitchers have tendencies. Every pitcher relies on a pitch, for example, you might have a pitcher with a great drop ball and she throws that 75% of the time. Her strike out pitch might be the rise or change up. My mentality would be, I'm jumping on that drop ball.
 
May 17, 2012
2,804
113
Just to summarize what others have stated in various forms. It's not (usually) about the mechanics. So many hitters want to do "X" drill to fix a mechanical flaw because they were 0-5 against a great pitcher.

You can do drills from now until the end of time but it's not going to matter against a great pitcher.

Tighten up the mental and physical approaches to hitting to improve your chances at success.
 
Feb 12, 2014
648
43
Lots of great advice in this thread. My DD played varsity as a 13 year old freshman last year and it was a big jump. In our league, 4 of the 6 teams we play have a D1 caliber pitcher and two of those will likely pitch in a power 5 conference. The old adage that school pitching is a drop off from travel pitching was certainly not true for us.

Two things we concentrated on - get the first pitch fastball. Don't get behind in the count and bring the spin into play. Pitchers (and coaches) want that first pitch strike - be ready to attack it. Look for tendencies when in the dugout and be ready.

The other thing we talk about is going early with a two strike approach. DD chokes up pretty much all the time so we concentrate on shortening the swing and getting the ball in play. With high velocity pitchers, my DD has a bad habit of trying to swing harder. When we talk about going early (maybe the entire AB) with a two strike approach, she's more able to focus on just getting barrel to ball and letting the incoming velocity do the work for her.

Good luck to your DD as the season winds up!!!
 
Apr 20, 2018
4,581
113
SoCal
This vvvvvv

"when she's feeling challenged by speed is to get started extra early, "

and this bandaid vvvvv

"This isn't really a fix, but will give short term success against fast pitchers until she becomes more experienced. Most batters swing under fast pitching because gravity has less of an effect on it before it reaches the plate. Have her focus on the top of the ball

and of course this vvvvv



should help.
 
Dec 5, 2017
514
63
This vvvvvv

"when she's feeling challenged by speed is to get started extra early, "

and this bandaid vvvvv

"This isn't really a fix, but will give short term success against fast pitchers until she becomes more experienced. Most batters swing under fast pitching because gravity has less of an effect on it before it reaches the plate. Have her focus on the top of the ball

and of course this vvvvv



should help.


My dd currently swings under faster and slower pitching because she thinks anything at eye level is a strike :mad:
 
Jun 8, 2016
16,118
113
My dd currently swings under faster and slower pitching because she thinks anything at eye level is a strike :mad:
Rather have a young kid be more aggressive and have to reign it in then the opposite.
 

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