Posted by: t olson () on Mon Feb 11 20:57:23 2002

""""The way that I work on a short inside path with my hitters, is to give them a short underhand frontoss (from behind an L screen). I will throw the pitch down the middle of the plate and have the hitters hit the ball up the middle or the other way."""""

I go one step further and force the batter to hit to the opposite field 9 times out of 10.

I don't believe the idea of hitting inside the ball is counter-productive to either style of hitting. I teach rotational with some weight shift (a short stride) where the batter drops (sits to hit)

Even when pulling an inside pitch there is-I believe--an element of staying inside the ball enough to prevent swinging around too much and driving it foul. Also, the problem of allowing the hands to roll early. Unless you have the "feeling" of staying inside the ball--even on the inside pitch--these things happen.

It's this element that I believe I'm instilling in the approach I take which is to focus on inside the ball by hitting a lot to the opposite field. A true rotational pull hitter with no "inside the ball" characteristics will drive the ball foul--a lot, and will also come up over the ball often hitting choppers to the pull side.

This approach also develops better ability to wait longer and square up the barrel better.