Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Jul 1 08:59:25 2003

>>> At the risk of having my head bitten off by those more knowledgeable... I'll take a shot. ;-)

Here is a comparison sequence I made from your animated GIF vs. Soriano:
http://members.cox.net/sandmanbaseball/Matt%20vs.%20Soriano.jpg

Thoughts:

1) Stride is a bit long (see cyan rectangles). Though Soriano's feet are spread quite far, he starts w/ them like that, then takes a very short step back and puts his stride foot back down in nearly the same spot.

2) You are lunging, instead of rotating. After your stride foot lands, at that point all forward movement should stop, and you should simply turn around the established axis, eventually straightening your left leg at contact. (see yellow lines, and how Soriano rotates behind that line)

3) You are not dropping your right shoulder enough to get your swing plane to match the plane of the incoming pitch. (see purple lines)

Here is a shot of your swing plane vs. Soriano's: http://members.cox.net/sandmanbaseball/Swing%20plane%20vs.%20Soriano.jpg

See how his is slightly uppercutting, whereas yours is more of a downward chop, or at most, level?

4) You are making contact too far forward. Try practicing w/ a tee or heavy bag setup around the area of your lead foot or knee, but only for inside pitches. For outside pitches, let the ball get deeper over the front of the plate. In BP, practice waiting longer on the pitch - if it's outside, hit it to right field, inside make contact at lead foot.

You might try this to overcome the lunging:

1) Start in a good powerful impact position - w/ left leg straight and your head, right shoulder, right hip and knee all neatly stacked in a vertical line.
2) Now swing in reverse, back onto stride toe. Then just go back to impact position, and back to stride. Back and forth, to get the feeling of that left leg straightening into impact and keeping your weight back "behind the [yellow] line".

While doing this,

Hope this helps.

Good luck,
Sandman <<<

Hi Sandman

Very good and accurate observations. I would add that it is strictly a back-side swing with little or no help coming from the lead-side.

Jack Mankin