My Daughter’s hitting timing is off in games. How can she get it back?

Hitting timing is a funny thing, as sometimes it just seems to disappear overnight. Following are coaching tips to keep a player’s timing and to help prevent one from losing hitting timing in the first place.

Tips to Help Hitting Timing

hitting timing

throwing numbers for hitting timing


Coaches should:

  1. Not get stuck throwing the same speeds to players during batting practice – getting used to the same speed is a common reason for having bad timing in games, when speeds are variable from pitcher to pitcher.
  2. Throw close to game like speeds in batting practice, but realize timing is off more from throwing too fast to kids than too slow. Once hitters are too quick or begin to cheat and open up early or lunge at balls, hitting timing is hard to get back.
  3. Keep up with “short focus” drills as batting tee work and short flip work throughout the season, as this keeps players focused on watching balls all the way to contact, without pulling off the ball, a common problem when timing goes. This is noticeable, when players are early with their swing.
  4. Along the same lines, making sure players watch balls from the pitcher’s hand is important, as sometimes timing is off because they wait and do not time the ball the whole distance from the pitcher to the plate. This is noticeable, when players are continually late on the swing.
  5. Always have players attempt to hit the ball in the direction of the pitched ball during batting practice, especially with hitting balls the opposite way. Once able to hit balls to the opposite field, adjusting a little earlier is easier to hit balls through middle.

Other points worth mentioning, it is important to begin the season with slower pitched balls and gradually increase speeds and realize that as players’ fundamentals change, hitting timing changes with that. Finally, another big cause of bad timing is over coaching, when coaches have players thinking of too much, especially fundamentals, when hitting in games.

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