Posted by: Jim (Jim@TheBatJack.com) on Sun Apr 24 21:02:49 2011

Chuck,

Simplify the approach by looking for the pitch in the middle 9 inches of the plate. This way you don't have to play the guessing game of where the pitcher is trying to pitch you.

By looking in the middle part of the plate you can actually cover the portion from middle away to middle in with power. You don't have to pick a side of the plate. Pitchers make mistakes within every at bat. It's up to the hitter to make him pay for it when he gets it.

Simplify.

Jim

> Hi Jack,
>
> I know that Mike Epstein and others like to say that a hitter can only cover 1/2 of the plate and that the hitter needs to look either for a pitch middle in or a pitch middle away. Perhaps this is true against the very elite pitchers, I'm not aware of your opinion on this.
>
> What do you think about the following approach to hitting, especially against average pitchers? Since we know that hitting the outside pitch well requires the application of THT, a hitter should first look for the outside pitch and prepare or begin to apply THT. If the pitch then happens to be more of an inside location, the hitter can pull his hands in and speed up shoulder rotation to adjust to it. In the opposite approach, if the hitter was looking for an inside pitch, he would set up to use mostly rotation with little or no THT. If the pitch was in fact outside, there would be little adjustment the hitter could make because it would be too late to apply THT and the front shoulder would probably be flying open. He would at best just slap the outside pitch and not drive it. So wouldn't it be best, especially for younger hitters, to first look to drive the outside pitch and then adjust to inside pitches, rather than the opposite approach? I think this really keeps your swing honest and on track.
>
> Thanks,
> Chuck