Hitting Tips – Baseball Swing Advice & How to Play Baseball by Jack Perconte

There are a lot of “5 O’clock (batting practice) hitters,” as opposed to  “7:30 ” (game hitters). This is one of the most perplexing situations of the game for  parents and coach. Their hitters absolutely pound the ball in batting practice and then fail to hit during games. There can be a number of reasons why hitters hit in batting practice but not in a game including they don’t have the fear factor in batting practice or the nervousness associated with games.
Usually however, the two main reasons why hitters  hit in practice but not in games are one, their swing fundamentals are not as good as they appear and two, the hitters are not being challenged enough in practice. Often, it appears to the untrained eye that a hitter has a great swing but, in reality, the swing has some fundamental flaws. Secondly, coaches have good intentions in batting practice of building their hitter’s confidence by laying the ball into the hitter at a hittable speed. However, if the batting practice is not gamelike, it doesn’t benefit the hitters.
 

What can be done to help these two situations?
1. Coaches should continue to give players hitting drills that address the hitter’s fundamental problem areas. Often, once the season starts, hitter’s stop doing the fundamental drill work that they did in preseason, if at all.
2. Coaches can have a legitimate, trained hitting coach observe the struggling hitters and make sugestions how to help thier fundamentals. Often, just one little fundamental tip can lead to much more success.
3. Putting hitters in game like situations as often as possible in practice so they develop game confidence allows them to feel like they “have been there before.”
4. Coaches should challenge hitters in batting practice with game like speeds and by changing speeds (age appropriate, of course). Hitters often adjust on their own, without fundamental help, when they are challenged enough. Coaches should not allow total frustration to appear in a hitter by over-challenging them, though.
5. Of course, patience and encouragement with the struggling hitters is always necessary. Coaching statements like “you can do it” and “I believe
in you” are great.

Finally, coaches should not give up on struggling players because any hitter willing to listen, learn and practice is not beyond hope to improve and become a good hitter.