Posted by: Chuck (jcsherwood8458@sbcglobal.net) on Mon Jul 2 17:22:22 2007

>I am a left handed hitter. I have been fouling a lot of balls off the sweet spot over the 3rd base dugout. I don't feel that I am late but just that I am missing the pitch. I was wondering if anyone had any ideas why this is happening on a consistant basis. It happens atleast once an at bat. Any suggestions would be helpful. Thanks

>Are your foul balls line drives or pop ups? If they're line drives, I would say that you are just late. If they tend to be pop ups, I would suggest two possible causes. You may be pulling your front shoulder out early and lagging the barrel of the bat too much, sort of sliding across the ball rather than truly rotating at it. This causes the barrel to be off of the swing plane and to drop under the ball, with little batspeed. After all, its the barrel of the bat that you are trying to accelerate.

I have also seen hitters that tend to push a little with their rear foot, causing their axis of rotation to bow forward towards the pitcher. This also causes the bat to lag and drop under the ball, often resulting in misses or pop ups to the opposite side.