Plate coverage philosophy

[ncgolf]

My DD crowds the plate, which works well for her. She knows, expects and is getting balls consistently pitched inside, pitchers are learning this after her first plate appearance. Any tips/drills on improving getting barrel on the ball on inside pitches. She has a tendency to make contact more on handle. She handles middle/outside just fine but we are trying to find ways to make more solid contact on the inside pitched balls.

Thanks.

 

[MountieSB]

My first thought is the barrel is long enough to handle outside pitches without crowding the plate. So you may want to have her experiment by taking some batting practice with her backing off of the plate a little. Show her she can back off the plate to handle the inside pitch without suffering on outside pitches.

To work on hitting the inside pitch (regardless of where she ends up in relation to the plate), start with setting a tee up inside and in front of the plate (that's where inside pitches should be attacked) and really focus on keeping her hands close to her body and driving the inside half of the ball. For all the tee work my hitters do, we place the ball on the tee with the "train tracks" going up and down. This is what the catcher's view would look like: )( We attack the inside seam. If she tries to hit behind the ball or outside the ball, she'll hammer everything foul. This takes some work, and she really has to rotate the upper body to get the barrel on that seam.







After that, work on front toss and machine work/live pitching in that location.

Last suggestion: If during her 2nd, 3rd, etc. at bats she notices they're working her inside, have her back off the plate slightly when she steps into the batter's box. If she hits something hard inside, 9 times out of 10 the opposing team will decide to stay away in subsequent at bats, in which case she can crowd again.

Mike

 

[rdbass]

My DD crowds the plate, which works well for her. She knows, expects and is getting balls consistently pitched inside, pitchers are learning this after her first plate appearance. Any tips/drills on improving getting barrel on the ball on inside pitches. She has a tendency to make contact more on handle. She handles middle/outside just fine but we are trying to find ways to make more solid contact on the inside pitched balls.

Thanks.

Sounds like a 'casting' problem
Dave Paetkau's Brain in a Blog: Casting Is Left For The Fish

 

[MountieSB]

rdb, what a great article & drill! I'd never seen the "second plate out in front" drill. Thanks!

 

[iMlearning]

My DD crowds the plate, which works well for her. She knows, expects and is getting balls consistently pitched inside, pitchers are learning this after her first plate appearance. Any tips/drills on improving getting barrel on the ball on inside pitches. She has a tendency to make contact more on handle. She handles middle/outside just fine but we are trying to find ways to make more solid contact on the inside pitched balls.

Thanks.

I don't like crowding the plate, but having said that, some girls do it very successfully. Our HC loves the girls crowding the plate and they get hit by a lot of balls. I think if you are going to crowd the plate, you need to get around faster to try to foul off those inside pitches. DD was pretty successful at this for awhile, but she has now backed off despite what he is telling her to do

 

[rdbass]

 

[SBFAMILY]

I have worked with Dave and Howard Carrier both teach roughly the same and use the same throw down T above. Tim Duncan and I use the whip hit , which punishes you if you cast! Nice post and article.

 

[SCDad]

My DD crowds the plate because she has the ability to turn on an inside pitch, and jack it. Maybe nor fair, but enough to show the pitcher it is dangerous to go inside.

Pitchers make a living working on the outside of the plate. A player has to own the outside, for it is the most difficult thing for a hitter to do. As a hitter, OWN the outside by learning to go opposite way deep, and you are a very tough out.

 

[FiveFrameSwing]

From a RH hitter's perspective, the above looks more like this ....

Than like this ....

 

[PEPPERS]

DD is getting ready for college so she practice hitting from a tee about an hour last night, her college coach insist the out side pitch be hit to the opposite field. She has discovered that not allowing the ball to get deep enough on the outside pitch results in hits going to center and left field where the coach yells at her, she hits right handed.

She hit 5 over a 190 foot fence opposite field and some good live drives from the tee, we also did soft toss with about the same results, allowing the ball to get deep enough she and I agree results in a more consistent percentage of solid hits, not allow the ball to get deep enough results in more weak grounders and fly balls to center and left field.