Posted by: John F. () on Tue Jul 17 23:12:15 2001

Today while I was hitting off my tee i noticed that I had this huge tendency to pull out cuz I was trying to hit the ball too hard. Then I stood farther away from the plate and stepped more toward the plate and I started hitting solid hits up the middle. My question is: Is it ok to hit like this or do you lose power or something?

This style of hitting reminds me a lot of Fred McGriff. He stands about as far away from the plate as he can and during his stride he steps forward and toward the plate a little. This will help you hit the ball to the opposite field better and I think it would be a good thing to try if you feel comfortable. Just make sure that you don't try to pull a lot of pitches unless they're on the very inside corner. Standing so far away from the plate you're going to have to hit a lot of pitches up the middle and to the opposite field.