Baseball Tips: How To Focus On Three Things To Improve Your Hitting!

By Larry Cicchiello
Updated: February 1, 2012

I believe hitters are way too often bombarded with too many baseball tips on hitting. The guilty culprits are often teammates, coaches, parents and occasionally even your Aunt Mary. Take your time and take hitting in stride. No pun intended. Try to learn a little bit at a time and you will be just fine. Relax and here are three things you might want to focus on.

Work On Your Weaknesses:

Human nature can be very funny at times. When a lot of hitters practice, they have a bad habit of practicing what they do well and not practice on their weaknesses. It probably has something to do with the fact that hitting the ball well, whether it’s during a game or at practice, makes us feel better. Now you can decide. Do you want to temporarily feel better and have your ego massaged or do you want to improve as a player? It is a very simple fact of life that real good hitters do not have glaring weaknesses! They may be able to handle some pitches better than others, but the differences are not that great. The reason they don’t have any glaring weaknesses is quite simple. They work on their weaknesses to eliminate them as soon as possible! They don’t practice and spend time working on their strengths. That’s why they are real good hitters.

Keep The Bat In The Hitting Zone:

One of the baseball hitting problems that many hitters encounter is they do not keep the bat in the hitting zone long enough. On the other side of the coin, the one thing that all great hitters have in common is that they do keep the barrel of the bat in the hitting zone longer than other hitters.

An outstanding baseball hitting drill is to visualize four baseballs being pitched to you when you are batting, instead of just one. They are one after another, and maybe two inches apart. The batter who keeps his bat in the hitting zone longer, will have a better chance to hit all four of the baseballs. A batter that does not keep the bat in the hitting zone long enough would probably only be able to hit the first ball and not the next three. Getting back to one baseball, the longer you keep the bat in the hitting zone, the better chance you have to make solid contact.

Line Drives Are The Goal:

Try to hit line drives and the doubles, triples and home runs will come, as well as the good batting average to go along with the extra base hits! If you hit it squarely, you have a very good chance for a hit. If you slightly top the ball, it may be a hard grounder for a hit. If you are slightly under the ball, it just might be an extra base hit. Many great power hitters say over and over again that the home runs almost happen “by accident.” The reason is that they simply try to hit a line drive. If they are a hair “under” the ball, it may very well leave the yard. It may seem a little ironic, but it’s true. They truly try to hit line drives and yet they are tremendous power hitters!

I’m well aware that some power hitters try strictly for the home run, and in almost all their cases, they have lower batting averages that reflect just that. Why not try to have both a high batting average as well as some power to go along with it? One of the better baseball tips on hitting to remember is that the home runs almost happen by accident. Line drives should be your goal.