Hitting is the backbone of virtually any baseball game. It is hitting which helps a team win or lose a baseball match. Consequently, most of the baseball players tend to spend a lot of time practicing and honing their hitting skills.
Good hitting is about a few simple things. You should hit the ball with a solid force, you should hit it in the direction you want to hit it and your ball should go as far in the distance as you intend. Following are some powerful tips to help you score perfection on all these fronts when hitting on a baseball pitch
Your Front Step
Your front step should plant itself solid in front of your other foot. The front step should ideally be placed at a 45-degree angle to the plate. The front step will give you a pivot on which you will base the momentum and swinging force of your hips and arms. So right placement of your front foot is particularly crucial to an effective hit on the pitch.
Hold Your Bat
Nearly all top baseball players hold their bat in a palm-up, palm-down position when hitting shots. Typically, the right hand is holding the bat closer to the barrel and should be in a palm-up position, facing upwards while grasping the bat. The left hand, a little behind the right hand and closer to the base, is in a palm-down position.
Your Foot
The purpose of a hit is to face the ball squarely and to hit it as far as possible. This requires as much momentum of your swing as you can muster. To be able to hit the ball with maximum possible force, your back foot should be very flexible and agile, compared to a relatively stiffer front foot.
The back foot should be agile enough to let you rotate your hip and swinging with speed without losing balance.
Your Eyes
Your eyes must be on the ball from the moment it leaves the pitcher’s hand all the way to your bat. This duration is simply a fraction of a second and it takes a lot of practice to ensure that you are able to keep the ball within your sight.
After a lot of practice, you should ideally reach a stage where you will know the path of the ball by instinct without even consciously tracing its path with your eyes. This is the stage which the top baseball players achieve in order to hit record-breaking scores in the baseball games.
The Overall Rotation Of Your Body
The overall rotation of your body players a huge role in ensuring a good hit. You should aim for having your knee, hip and head in line vertically when rotating your body for a hit. This ensures that you don’t swing too soon which can lose your momentum nor that you swing too late and hit a poor shot.
Your Hip
The position of your hip, head and knee in a vertical line should ideally be between the two feet. This ensures that you remain stable during a swing and find a good balance between swing speed, momentum and stability since each is critically important for an effective swing.
The Top Arm
The top arm, with which you add the maximum amount of momentum to your swing, should be bent when swinging the bat. Ideally, the bent top arm should also remain as close to your body as possible. This will ensure that you swing with a lot of momentum and hit the ball squarely into the distance.
The Swing Path
The swing path of your bat within the hitting zone is important. You should aim to manage your bat path during the hit so that it remains the longest amount of time within the hitting zone. A poor bat path, in comparison, does not spend a lot of time within the hitting zone.
The Momentum of Your Rotation
The momentum of your rotation is important in ensuring that you stay within the hitting zone for a long time. You should practice by imagining that you have to hit the incoming baseball and then three balls behind it in quick succession.
By imagining this, you will keep your bat in line and within the hitting zone for a longer amount of time. Consequently, you will have a better probability of hitting smashing shots over the field.
Strive To Stay Inside The Ball When Hitting
Strive to stay inside the ball when hitting. This means that you should try to ensure that you swing your bat closer to the body. This gives you the advantage of adding solid power into the swing and also to allow you to swing the bat quickly.
Practice As Much As Possible
Practice as much as possible. You should practice your stance, swing and hit. All three aspects are behind every successful hit, so you should practice each as much as possible. At the same time, practice to keep your upper and lower body in optimal strength.
Ideally when you walk on to a proper baseball match, you should have practiced often enough to make perfect swinging an automatic instinct. Once this happens, you will be able to focus on the incoming ball and hit a powerful shot on every swing.
Your Body Should Be Relaxed
Your body should be relaxed but alert and confident during the hitting. This means that you should not be rigid neither should you go slack. Plant your front foot solid, leave the back foot and the arms mobile and after locking your sight on the baseball, bring down your bat with a calm ease and confidence.
Avoid Rolling Your Wrists
You should try to avoid rolling your wrists when hitting the ball. Rolling your wrists at such a critical juncture can lead to unexpected results. You may be able to hit farther but you may also hit a poor shot. So wrist action is a risk at best.
In order to make sure that you do not put a lot of wrist action into your hitting, practice locking your wrists immediately after extending your arms during a hit. After a lot of practice, you will be able to perform this by instinct which will help you perform well during a proper game.
Focused On The Game
As you walk out to the pitch during a game, you should be absolutely focused on the game. Put out everything else from your mind and focus on the ball, the game and your own hitting technique.
