What's up
hitters? I'm Coach Dan Blewett. In today's video, let's talk
about how to hit slow pitching. Alright, so if you're new here,
I'm coach dam, a former pro pitcher Today let's talk about
how to hit slow pitching. So obviously, this can be a
problem, especially for young hitters, adjusting from a really
hard throwing pitcher where you feel locked into a slow throwing
pitcher, who is kind of just like, lobbing it up, there is
kind of junk in it. And it can be mentally and physically
distracting. So let's talk about some strategies here to help you
have a good game, even when there's a really soft throwing
kind of grenade thrown on the Mount. Alright, so first tip
here, number one, is take time when you're on the on deck
circle, the time the hitter or the time the pitcher up. So what
this means is, when you're off to the side, you should be
watching the pitcher, go through his delivery, and figure out
when your foot needs to be down to be on time. With his his
release point, you'll see every major league, every high level
hitter doing this in the on deck circle, they're watching the
pitcher, they're watching him go through the rhythm of the
delivery, and they're getting their foot down on time, it's
going to change for every pitcher, if you throw 100 Yeah,
your foots gonna have to get down quicker to get your bat
through the zone. If you throw 70 it's gonna take longer,
right, so use the time and the on deck circle to time up the
pitcher. Alright, tip number two here is take a pitch. If you
feel like you need to figure out how it looks coming in, does it
have any ride is it kind of dying, and you just feel like
you need to adjust, especially if there's a hard thrower in
before, take a pitch, you know the odds a pitcher throws a
strike on the first pitch is only two thirds, if he's good.
If he's a good strike thrower. If he's not a good strike
thrower, it's probably more like half like 50% 55%, something
like that. So you have a 5050 shot of being behind her head
and account essentially. So you might as well take that first
pitch to get comfortable, gauge it and see what the speed looks
like. Alright, My third tip for hitting slow pitching is take
your normal swing for some reason hitters get into this,
this mental happy zone where they're like, Oh, this guy
throws slow. So now it's Happy Gilmore time, and they just want
to go off to the driving range and see how far they can hit it,
that's a bad idea. Because you're going to get a rhythm,
you're going to swing too hard, you're going to be too mentally
focused on trying to get an extra base hit or hit a Dinger.
And that's going to take you out of the focus zone, which is see
the ball, put a good swing on the ball. Those two things are
incompatible. Mentally, you can't see ball hit ball and try
to hit a Dinger and embarrass the good at the same time, it
just doesn't work. So stay in your normal swing, don't change
anything, the fact that he throws slower is not going to
mean you're just gonna be tough hit the ball in the outfield,
it's actually only one mile per hour in exit speed for every
five miles per hour that the pitcher throws. So if they throw
10 miles per hour slower than normal, that's only going to
lose two miles per hour of exit velocity. So it's really not
gonna make any difference. And that's straight from Dr. Allen
Nathan. He's one of the baseball physics guys. He told me that
equation, so it's one to five essentially. So again, there's
not a very big difference from exit velocity for slower
throwers. So don't feel like you need to go up there swinging for
the fences gets really, really bad idea. Tip number four. When
you throw slower as a pitcher, the ball is going to sort of
have a pop up out of your hand. curveballs are going to go up
before they kind of go down, sliders are gonna look like they
go up before they go down, you'll see the ball pop out of
the hitters, or add the pitchers hand a lot more when they don't
throw as hard. That's why it's so hard to hit. Really high
level pitching hoop guys, you throw really hard and throw
really fast breaking ball. So in the big leagues, most guys threw
their curveball 80 mph now, which is really, really hard. So
it tracks straight for a long time and never has that pop up
out of the hand. So when you're a hitter, and you know a guy
throws slowly, you know that his curveball and his slider they're
going to pop up out of his out of their hand. So basically, you
can say, Okay, I'm going to have an easy time recognizing the
curveball and the slider. So basically, this allows you to
say I don't have to worry about the curveball in the slider,
because I'm going to be able to see it very easily. So I can
just tie myself up, look for fastballs hunt fast balls and
adjust when I see that curveball or that slider go up. Alright,
tip number five for hitting slow pitching is set yourself
mentally to hit the ball to center or to right center. Don't
get into again, we talked about getting into this home run swing
mode, go up to the plate saying I'm going to see ball hit ball
and I'm going to try to smash it right back up the dish to
centerfield. If you do that. And they throw a little slower. You
might be a little bit on your front foot but you'll still have
enough of your way back to then pull it and keep it fair boy you
don't want to be doing is being so ready to ambush and pull the
ball that then if he throws anything off speed or it's on
the outside part of the plate or whatever. Now you're just way
too far out in front and you have no chance of keeping it
fair with authority. So mentally set your little knob to back up
the middle or opposite field and be prepared to drive it that
way. And you'll be surprised at how often that that approach
will keep you grounded. Keep your weight back and keep you
mentally centered. to not try to get into pool happy mode where
you then get too far on your front foot.
And my last tip my sixth tip for hitting slow pitchers is Don't
let your guard down and think you've already won the game
before it gets going. This is a common problem. Everyone gets so
excited they want to heckle the other team. They want to heckle
the opposing pitcher, they feel like they've already won. So
they're just laughing around the dugout, they're not focusing on
the on deck circle, they come up here smiling rages like take a
home run a home run swing, they're already doing their home
run trot before they take a swing. And what happens is they
have a bunch of really bad bats in the first three or four
innings. And they're losing two to one. And now they all panic.
And the last thing you say, oh man, we're about to get
embarrassed by this, this guy that doesn't throw very hard.
And now what happens you start to press, it starts to snowball
and everything gets mentally worse. And now your bats get
really scary, because you're afraid of looking like a chump
because you've already gone over to against the guy. So if you
stay locked in from the from the beginning, prepare to battle it
out this pitcher just like you would any other pitcher and stay
focused on seeing ball hit ball going up the middle or going
opposite opposite gap, then you're gonna have a good time
and a good game staying locked in and then you can beat this
guy, he doesn't have good stuff. But again, if you put the cart
before the horse and you feel like you've already won the
battle before you've started it, you're gonna have a really tough
time with this junk ball who probably has some good command
and good success changing speeds otherwise coach probably
wouldn't throw them out there against you. So hopefully this
video is helpful. It can be really tough for younger pitcher
or for younger hitters to hit slow pitching. But if you keep
your mind right, and if you use some of the strategies that we
talked about today, you can have one of your best games against
slower pitching. Alright, thanks again for watching. I'm Coach
Dan Blewett. Check out the links in the description below where
you'll find my online courses, other videos, my books and all
that good stuff to follow with me Be sure to subscribe and I'll
see you in the next video.