Posted by: TSA () on Mon Nov 6 09:10:14 2006

All I can say is anticipate. A lot of high school hitters go to the dish looking for anything. All good hitters look for pitches. A quick fix to the problem you addressed would be to have your hitters constantly saying, yes, yes, yes. However, I thing they would be better served by giving them a plan. Hitting does not start when you enter the batters, box...if thats where you think your going to make your plan of attack, its to late. Hitters must know the situation, the pitchers tendancies, and how the hitters around you have been pitched. If I have a 2-0 count and the hitter and the pitcher constantly goes to his fastball when he's behind I'll be damned if I'm going to get cought with the bat on my shoulder. I guess you can call these hitters counts batting cage counts. There is no defense for a base on balls and thus the pither is forced to give in a little bit. I would say this statement holds true all the way through baseball and certainly at the age level you described. AS players mature however, some pitchers make it by throwing against the count...offspeed on fastball counts, and then they try to freeze you with a fastball when your ahead in the count. If a hitter recognizes this, they can up there odds of anticipating the pitch correctly.