Posted by: Major Dan (markj89@charter.net) on Fri Mar 29 07:18:55 2002

When does the batter get set into the launch position... I have 2 girls .. 16 yr olds that are having a hard time meeting the ball .. And appears to be late in their swing and the pitching is pretty fast .. The more I watch , I see the girls shifting weight back , moving hands back ready to launch into the ball AFTER the ball has left the pitchers hand and it appears that they are trying to get set to late to hit it. Strike outs are the result ...
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> I have been of the opinion and the way I hit in a mens baseball league I play in is to get set into the launch position before the pitcher even releases the ball ... Weight back .. Hands back in position and to react from that position when the ball comes in ...
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> Its hard for me to tell from watching the professionals just when they get into position. Before the pitch or when the pitch is on its way..
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> Hope this makes sense ...

Once the pitching becomes fast, ie, reaction time vs. just contacting an 'easy' pitch, sequencing becomes a problem.
The most common one is that the hitter reads the pitch, decides its a good one, then loads up/ gets into launch position. Result is being late on the good pitches.
Proper sequence, is load, read, react. A variation of this is that the hitter thinks 'go' (hit the ball) on every pitch and calls off the swing if the pitch is bad. This is the same sequence - get ready, read, decide, react.

The key is to load/get into launch position BEFORE the pitch is read as swing or no swing.