Expert: Jack Elliott - 4/27/2009

Question
My right-handed 14 year old son used to hit with "double-triple" power to all fields and was always the best hitter on his travel team, but this year he is almost always hitting everything to the right side--mainly weak pop-ups, foul balls, etc.  He has rarely hit the ball hard this year.  He is still facing mainly fastball pitchers--few curves.  What do you recommend?

Answer
Hi David,

This is a difficult question to answer without actually seeing his swing.  Here, some possibilities that could be in play.  He may be having trouble seeing the ball.  Generally, hitters who hit to the opposite field all the time do this because they have difficulty seeing the ball inside.

Another possibility is that his bat speed has not kept up with the increase in velocity by pitchers.  Once puberty begins the body starts to develop for pitchers and their velocity is likely to increase steadily during this time.  It could be your son is having difficulty adjusting to this increase speed.  

Finally, it may be simply an issue of timing and not hitting the ball solid.  Since you said a number of these hits are pop-ups or foul balls, it could be that his timing is off.  This may be partly mental because of the fear of being fooled by changeups and curveballs.  It may simply take him some more batting practice and game situations for him to adjust to this new change in the pitching he is seeing.

I would suggest you talk with your son and see if he has some idea of what has changed.  Ask him if is having any vision issues or does he feel the pitchers are now throwing much harder or faster.  If these are at play, you can consider taking him to the eye doctor or doing specific drills to improve his bat speed.  If these are not the issue, you should strongly consider having him get some hitting lessons from a good instructor in your area.  They can pinpoint very quickly what may be some specific problem areas and also, give suggestions on how to eliminate them.  If cost for lessons is prohibitive, I suggest you videotape your son and send it to the following site and ask for advice.  This site offers solid baseball hitting help at a reasonable price:

http://www.mikeepsteinhitting.com/Store/tabid/84/List/0/ProductID/37/Default.asp...

I think the above should be a good starting point for helping pinpoint your son's hitting woes.  Good luck to you and your son in the upcoming season.

Best,
Jack Elliott
http://www.baseballtrainingtechniques.com