Posted by: Joe A. () on Wed Jul 25 05:42:58 2001

I have found that my daughter tends to hit to the right side of the field quite often during games, although she hits fine during batting practice. Her bat speed has always seemed to be good. from coaching first base all year, I can tell that she is having a hard time deciding whether or not to swing at the ball, and is therefore most often late. We have worked on focusing on the release point, and I have thrown thousands of pitches for her at practice.
> Is there any drills that we could do to help her reaction time?


Roy,

Your daughter should not be deciding to swing or not to swing. There is no time. She should "intend" to swing at every pitch. The only dicession she should make is "not to swing."

Also, its possible she is not deciding if the pitch is good or not soon enough. Good hitters know if the pitch is good before it is half way to the plate. They do this by picking up the pitch out of the pitcher's hand and "instantly" calculating where its going to be when it gets to the plate.

Some hitters do this naturally but it's a skill that can be learned with practice.

Joe A.