Contact points for hitters

In yesterday’s post about two strike hitting, I mentioned that looking away allows a hitter to wait a little longer on the pitch.  In relation to that, I thought it would be appropriate to show where the various contact points are depending on where the ball is thrown.  The diagram below is what it looks like.  The stars represent where a right-handed batter’s bat should make contact with the ball on a pitch at that location.  A left-hander’s line would slope the other way.

Key points:

• When you use a batting tee, the tee must move along that line to correctly mimic where contact should be made depending on what pitch you are working on.
• You’ll notice that contact should NOT be made directly over home plate.  That’s why plopping the batting tee right over the plate is incorrect.  On a pitch down the middle, the tee should be placed so as to put the ball slightly in front of the plate.
• The inside contact point should clearly show pitchers why it is so important to throw inside strikes.  To hit that pitch a batter has to be a little quicker in getting the barrel out front which is tougher to do compared to an outside pitch.  A slow bat can hit an outside pitch well.  It can’t hit an inside pitch as easily.
• You’ll notice that the inside and outside stars are not strikes.  This was intentional.  I like batters to practice 2-strike hitting by going through all the adjustments as well as hitting pitches off the plate.  This helps their overall confidence hitting with two strikes and also emphasizes the 2-strike rule of swinging at anything close. 

Tomorrow’s post:   Saving baseballs