Posted by: Sandman () on Tue Jul 1 08:51:06 2003

I made this mistake of posting this yesterday,
> on the last day of the month.
>
> So I was originally going to post here that I've
> been having all sorts of problems with my
> swing in my adult league on the weekends,
> getting around late and/or just not hitting. So I
> had my wife videotape my swing so I could
> digitize and post it- and on the first pitch, I
> knock a bad-hop single over the third
> baseman.
>
> So I'd still like anbody who wants to to look at
> my swing and critique it. How are my arms?
> How's my stride? What sorts of things am I
> doing wrong? Are my hands too high? Any
> training suggestions? I've just started to try to
> emulate the rotational mechanics Jack talks
> about, comparing me at particular frames to
> the animation on this site (and it hasn't been
> easy). Any comments are welcome, just go
> easy about the hair and the gut.
>
> Matt
>
> http://www.bytesizesound.com/hit_low.gif

At the risk of having my head bitten off by those more knowledgeable... I'll take a shot. ;-)

Here is a comparison sequence I made from your animated GIF vs. Soriano:
http://members.cox.net/sandmanbaseball/Matt%20vs.%20Soriano.jpg

Thoughts:

1) Stride is a bit long (see cyan rectangles). Though Soriano's feet are spread quite far, he starts w/ them like that, then takes a very short step back and puts his stride foot back down in nearly the same spot.

2) You are lunging, instead of rotating. After your stride foot lands, at that point all forward movement should stop, and you should simply turn around the established axis, eventually straightening your left leg at contact. (see yellow lines, and how Soriano rotates behind that line)

3) You are not dropping your right shoulder enough to get your swing plane to match the plane of the incoming pitch. (see purple lines)

Here is a shot of your swing plane vs. Soriano's: http://members.cox.net/sandmanbaseball/Swing%20plane%20vs.%20Soriano.jpg

See how his is slightly uppercutting, whereas yours is more of a downward chop, or at most, level?

4) You are making contact too far forward. Try practicing w/ a tee or heavy bag setup around the area of your lead foot or knee, but only for inside pitches. For outside pitches, let the ball get deeper over the front of the plate. In BP, practice waiting longer on the pitch - if it's outside, hit it to right field, inside make contact at lead foot.

You might try this to overcome the lunging:

1) Start in a good powerful impact position - w/ left leg straight and your head, right shoulder, right hip and knee all neatly stacked in a vertical line.
2) Now swing in reverse, back onto stride toe. Then just go back to impact position, and back to stride. Back and forth, to get the feeling of that left leg straightening into impact and keeping your weight back "behind the [yellow] line".

Hope this helps.

Good luck,
Sandman