Posted by: PatA (patrick_allison@reyrey.com) on Fri Feb 14 10:56:41 2003

Well one thing is great, you are in Florida. This is a one aspect of the game that can be taught but it just depends on the maturity of the players and their " game sense". Let's say that your pitcher throws a down and in pitch on the hitter. The hitter turns on this pitch and crushes it foul down the third base line. Are you likely to call that pitch again to that hitter? I doubt it. So, with less than two strikes this hitter is now looking for something over the plate or out because she knows she did a great job on getting to that ball.
> It's a reverse of roles and your hitters have to be instructed as if they were pitchers. What would they throw? Then that is what they should be looking for.
> It takes many hours of talking through it and making it make sense to them. My daughter watches baseball and has since she was about 7, she is now 16, so she understands the "game sense" and is also a pitcher which helps. Our best two hitters are our pitcher and catcher because they have the same role as far as setting up pitches. They now understand the hitting role far beyond the rest.
> It takes time.

On crushing the pitch down and in, if she did in fact turn on the ball, (in the truest sense), no I would not throw it to her again. If she can't turn on the ball and hit it with arms, I can get an 0-2 count on her pretty quick by going there again. In the big 3, (FL, TX & CA), it get's tough for hitters because there are so many pitchers, the kids face several new pitchers every weekend. I don't mean to insult, but I know from experience, to many young hitters, (baseball and softball), are not properly prepared mentally for the challenge. What I am interested in knowing is, what do you have them looking for the first time they face a pitcher, how do you teach them to manage the zone? Are they cataloging pitches to get a handle on a particular pitchers tendencies?