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Reply to "Hitting kid pitch diificulty"

Two things generally happen around this age.

1. Hand eye coordination. The pitch is no longer coming from the angle of a 6 foot coach and it can mess with kids.  To combat this I would recommend two things, both with wiffle ball and bat.  1. Have HIM toss the ball up and hit it as it's coming down.  This will help him track it far better than you soft tossing to him.  2. As Gov suggested, you stand to the side and toss the ball at him and don't forget his knee area...this will also help him figure out where the ball is while he's swinging.  It's not enough to soft toss when kid pitch begins, he has to have a better connection and feel with the ball than it just coming straight on.  I think you will be surprised at how many he misses the ball that he tosses up himself. Once he is proficient at the wiffle ball concept you can take it to the real baseball concept....but again I strongly recommend HE toss it up and then hit it.

2. His swing may be too complicated.  The younger they are the more moving parts a kid has to his swing....and while that may have looked cool and been fine for coach pitch it can be the death of a kid's swing when they see live pitching.  For example, and this is a true example, batter is standing at the plate, he has his left leg back a good 6 inches from his right leg.  He has his left elbow up so high and back the batter can actually see his barrel of his own bat out of his left eye. He is also crouched down so far he appears about 2.5 feet tall.  By the time the ball got to the plate the kid had to bring his left foot forward, shift his weight back on his right leg, bring his elbow down and pull it forward, and he stood up another 1.5 feet.......all of that movement took a LOT of time and the kid couldn't figure out why he was swinging too late and either fouling or missing the ball entirely.  Well when you have to do 3-5 different things once the ball is released that takes a LOT of time, and time isn't something you have.

Good luck!

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