Posted by: Torque (roscoethewestie@comcast.com) on Sat Feb 7 22:33:27 2009

> Hello
> My son is twelve and a good size athletic kid. He has always had a natural swing. He is right handed and has always batted left. Late last year he had a major power loss and can't seem to hit anything but grounders and little weak chip cut backspin ducks to the outfield. Almost like a cut in tennis. It is really frustrating him. Any suggestions to improve this and get his power back?
>
> david dimond

He is probably swinging level with the ground which is a big mistake. He should swing level with the plane of the pitch which is a slight upper cut. Have him tuck his rear elbow (left) into an L shape into his ribs or close to his body as described elsewhere on this web site. Make sure lead elbow (right) isn't flexing too much.

The pitchers may have moved the mound back this year and ball is probably dropping a little more than last year. Would guess he is swinging over the ball some more.

I was hitting in a batting cage a year or more ago and slowed the pitching machine down dramatically. My hitting quality dropped dramatically on the slow pitches. I hit poorly for about 10 minutes until I figured out that I wasn't swinging on plane with the pitch. I needed to be getting under the ball more as it was dropping more. Adjusted to swing on plane with the pitch and problem fixed immediately.

Really sounds like he needs to concentrate on swinging on plane. Sounds like he isn't getting as much of the baseball.

Also need to make sure he isn't hitting with a larger infield than in the past. Sometimes a new larger infield as they move up can look like the hit is shorter and weaker than it was previously.