Posted by: Don A (donalberts@msn.com) on Fri Feb 1 07:05:52 2002

My son's timing at the plate has left him. The harder he works his form off the tee the worse his timing gets during games. He is either late, hitting week ground balls or flies the opposite direction or early pulling the ball foul. When late his bottom half can't catch up and he is throwing the hands to make contact. When early his front side has landed so early that he is pulling the ball into the dugout. The swing looks better when early but the timing is way off. When making adjustments at the plate he has had both these situations in the same at bat many times. Are there any drills to soley help timing? When during the pitchers motion should he initiate cocking his front side? We have talked about keeping his bottom half slow, cocking early and varing the time he sets his front foot down to initiate his swing. The theory being that he can adjust to fast balls and off speed. Is this good advice and are there any drills? He seems to keep the timing from when he lifts his front foot and when he lowers it the same trying to vary his timing soley at the point of lifting and cocking the front side. If this is correct, are there any drills to help him time when he starts cocking the front side?
>
> This sounds very much like what we call stride-swinging. The hitter uses the stride to start the swing. He uses the forward momentum to bring the bat around instead of striding onto his front foot and redirecting the momentum into body rotation.
> Your son may be rotating or he may be doing a full body lunge, but it sounds like he hasn't separated the timing of the stride from the commitment to the swing.
> Mike Epstein's lower body mechanics may help you both with imagery and some good drills. Jack's pages here explain quite a bit about what you should be doing as well.
> In short, it is not stride and swing, it is stride, then rotate into swing.
> I'll bet change ups kill him...



Hi Dan, I appreciate you taking the time to help. I have been taught that the swing starts when the front foot lands. Short stride to speed up and higher stride to slow down. Front foot lands in the same spot regardless of pitch. Is this not correct? As far as change ups the troubles I discribed above are the same as fast balls. His timing is off regardless of pitch. I'll be sending a tape to Jack shortly and I'm sure he'll agree he's not lunging. His swing looks good off a tee but his timing at the plate is killing him. Any drills for timing? I know 1 ex and 1 current Major League pitcher that constantly say that hitting is timing and they pitch to disrupt timing. With all the focus on mechanics I am still looking for drills to help timing and am having a hard time finding them.