Posted by: Jack Mankin (MrBatspeed@aol.com) on Tue Feb 17 20:20:32 2009

>>> My son is struggling with hitting the ball off the end of the bat. cue balling it. He also seems to be stepping out with his left foot. He does fine off a tee, but live pitching he is struggling.
any ideas? <<<

Hi Joe

Welcome to the site. -- When a batter is continually hitting foul balls to the right side or off the end of the bat, indicates the bat-head is trailing too far behind the hands at contact. This is due more to the hitter's swing mechanics than a timing problem. The mechanics taught by many coaches has the batter quickly extending the hands (or knob) toward the ball. This linear theory of bat acceleration relies on a whipping action of the bat-head that is supposed to occur as the hands near full extension.

However, any whipping action of the bat-head (actually a "pendulum" effect) only occurs when the hands are accelerated in a circular path (like swinging a ball on a string). With a more linear hand-path and the disconnection from shoulder rotation that occurs with it, the bat-head trails behind the hands to far into the swing. This results in the hands (and meat of the bat) arcing too far over toward the shortstop to make solid contact. -- "Stepping in bucket" would add to this problem.

This site promotes rotational transfer mechanics that make more efficient use of the larger muscles in the legs and torso to fling the hands into a circular path. It might be worth your time to study the material found here.

Jack Mankin