How to hit a curve ball

This article puts together a good strategy for hitting the curve ball.

Here is an outline of the article.

• A little background of hitting the curveball
• Good Curve ball vs Bad Curveball
• Developing a Hitting Strategy
• Preparing to Hit the Curve Ball
• Curve ball Characteristics
• Baseball Hitting Truths
• 2 Drills to help you learn

Here are the drills.

Drill: 1

(1.) The Coach, lobs a tennis ball underhanded bouncing the ball 3 to 4 feet in front of the plate …

(2.) This makes it bounce high over the plate…

(3.) The hitter watching the flight of the ball, must hesitate to see where the ball bounces over the plate…

(4.) Again, the hesitation of watching the ball’s flight, then bounce, helps the hitter be patient. Having the batter use a cork ball bat or a broom stick instead of a regular bat helps focus. In essence the hitter is using a baseball swing to hit a slow pitch softball type pitch, which does not normally work well.

You’re trying to teach hesitation, not hitting per se’, so setting the drill up to where successfully hitting the ball is not really fully expected eliminates any temptation to develop an upper cut in their swing.

Drill: 2

(1.) The Coach, from behind a pitchers’ protective screen located about 20 feet in front of the plate, lobs the baseball underhanded to the batter.

(2.) Using the arc of the ball and by mixing speeds will help the hitter wait on the ball. Instruct the hitter to always try to hit these pitches up the middle.

See full story on learn-youth-baseball-coaching.com