How to Bunt in Baseball

Video Transcript

" The next thing we are going to talk about is bunting. Bunting is one of the easiest things that you can do in baseball and it’s up to the hitter to make it difficult but it’s really a very easy thing to do. What we are going to do, there are a couple of different ways you can go about it. Some coaches will have you just turn your back foot and your hips and get right here while your body, your legs still remain sideways. You are going to hold the bat like you are pinching the top half and the bottom half of the bat. You don’t want to have your hands like this so you don’t get hit by the pitch. You want to have a firm grip on it on either side so if the ball happens to land right here it’s not going to hurt your fingers. You want the bat pretty level, maybe at a slight angle, and at the angle you are going to hit that you want the ball to go. So if I want to bunt a ball down the third base line I’m going to have it angled out to where the bat is kind of pointing over in this direction. If I want to bunt the ball down the first base line I still have the bat out in front of the plate, I still have the angle up a little bit, maybe level and the only difference is how we guide it with our left hand. And we want to have it, we have it now pointing further over to the right than we did when we were trying to bunt it down the third base line. So and then what’s going to happen now is depending on the height of the pitch, we’re going to go up or down. So if we bunt a ball and the pitch is coming right here we can leave the bat right there, keep our eyes down on the bat so we can see it, let it hit and bunt it down to first base. If the pitch is low what we want to avoid doing, which say we are trying to bunt it down the first base line, we want to avoid doing this. You don’t want to drop the bat, the bat head it’s going to give you no control and your chances of getting a bunt down this way are very slim. So what you want to do is get back in the same position, when you see the pitch is going to be low, get down, go down with your knees. And keep the bat level, keep your arms in the same position that you want them to be in. The same thing if you are going to bunt the ball down the third base line, get the bat at an angle and slightly up maybe even if you want it really doesn’t make that much difference, and then go up or down keeping your eyes at the same spot on the bat. The other thing, the other way to bunt is to bring this foot out as the pitcher starts his wind up bring this foot out, this foot up and do the same thing with your hands and your arms and your eyes and your knees; where you go up down angle where you want to hit it. It doesn’t matter. This leaves you a little bit more open so if a ball is inside maybe a little more dangerous. So I prefer just this right here. Just keeping it simple, shifting your hips, turning your back foot and then just going from here with your arms and your eyes and your head."