How to Time a Pitched Baseball

Video Transcript

"Now we're going to talk about timing. Now when it comes to hitting, timing has two separate aspects. The first aspect is, your timing in getting prepared to, to make your swing. So, if the pitcher is say, like I've talked about before, if the pitcher is just sitting there, he hasn't started his wind up yet and you're already ready to go, you're going to tire yourself out, you're going to start to get long in your swing, it's not going to work. So the first part of timing is, knowing when to be ready as the pitch is coming to you. Typically, what you want to do is, basically, have your plant foot down and have your trigger ready as he comes down, as his front foot plants and he comes down through. That will give you enough time to see the ball and react. The second part we're going to talk about is, timing as far as, actually hitting the baseball. Now you need, as we've talked about, you need to be able to see the ball and to know where it's at and be able to pick up what kind of a pitch it is, things like that. So, if I swing and the ball is just out of his hand, obviously, it's going to come after me. If I swing after it's already by me, it doesn't do me any good if I'm swinging at a ball that is already in the catcher's mitt. So, you need to figure it out. Say okay, my swing is this fast, so I need to swing at this pitch at this time and it all comes from practice. Hitting more balls and hitting more balls and hitting more balls, you become more comfortable and timing works out for you easy. So now, pitcher is in his stance, he's in the wind up, there we go, he gets started, boom, pitch is coming, there we go. That's timing in hitting."