- Oct 10, 2011
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The hips must lead the swing, not the hands. That sometimes causes a lunge. But what I have found to be the main culprit for not being able to let the ball get deep is hitting off of a tee that is set too far out towards the pitcher. This affects their point of contact when facing live pitching. They start reaching for the ball instead of letting it come in. Solution: set the tee almost midline of the body. Not as much fun for the batter because the batter won't have the same bat speed on the ball at point of contact. There's more to that issue but the main idea is to not create reaching for the ball.
As far as being aware of the lunge, the batters can be told, they can be shown, they can even feel it for themselves, but until they have many, many repetitions of waiting for the ball to get deep they will fall back to it during games. And it only takes one hard hit while lunging to wipe out all the practices. Or a really fast, down the middle pitcher, who is a lunger's best friend. Most lungers can't hit slower pitching.
The best drill for curing lunging is also the best drill for working on hitting outside pitches. Set a screen up about 20 feet in front of the batter, but about 5 feet off center of the path to the pitching plate, In other words, move the screen more towards 3rd.
Pitch the ball across the outside of the plate. They must hit the ball to right field, no exceptions, even on a pitch that doesn't get too far outside. In order to do this, they will have to wait for the ball to get deep. If they start stepping in towards the plate, throw the ball inside until they stride neutral.
Most will hate this drill. There will be lots of sliced hits, pop ups galore, ground balls to 2nd, until they make barrel adjustments. Then they'll be hitting hard right center gappers. But the best thing will be that they will develop a deeper point of contact.
This will take buckets of balls per player, per practice, but it works.
Another good idea is one-armed (top arm, right arm for a righty), short-bat practice hitting outside pitches. Either front tossed or regular pitch. Side toss isn't much good for anything other than warming up.
You forgot to tell them they have to do a burpee for each one not hit to right field. That's when they really start hitting it more consistently
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