Hitting The Inside Pitch

Alot of young hitters are pull hitters. They will pull all pitches when they make contact. Inside and out, fastball and off speed, it almost always ends up on the pull side of the field.

This is because, among other things, where they feel the most power. They want to hit the ball as hard as they can and make it go as far as it can. That's great, but there is a time to pull the baseball and a time to hit it the other way.

Let's talk about hitting the inside pitch for the sake of accomplishing that as a goal for an at bat. I'm not talking about pulling every pitch. I'm talking about going up to the plate understanding that this pitcher, this game, has been throwing fastballs inside alot and I think I can beat him with this pitch. That means you are looking for it when you go up to bat.

The mechanics to hit an inside pitch are the same as a regular swing except you really need to focus on getting your hands inside the baseball. This means your bat path before you hit the baseball is actually gonna be longer, so your hands have to be quicker.

The trickiest part about hitting the inside pitch is that you have to get your hands extended even though the pitch is inside. So how do you do this. You want to take the quickest path with your hands inside the baseball. This usually means you have to start your swing earlier. Especially if you are swinging at a fastball.

At the point of contact your arms should be extended with a slight bend for maximum power. This is very hard to do because the pitch is fast and the plane the bat takes is longer than hitting the outside pitch.

If you can master hitting the inside fastball and hitting it fair and hard, you will be a weapon for your team and probably hit some bombs at the same time.