


You haven't been facing major league pitching.      

  Maybe more... you have to be good at the plate, and most

STATS did a little study in the 1993 Scoreboard book entitled "Can
you hit sacrifice flies on purpose?"  A summary of the findings:

Over the 5 year period, sac-fly type fly balls were produced 17.6
percent of the time in situations where a sac fly was useful, and 
17.7 percent of the time when a sac fly wasn't useful.

They looked at the leaders in sac flies, and found that the leaders
in sac flies - in other words, the guys you would expect to be good
at it it - hit sac fly type fly balls only 3% more often when they
needed to - a difference way too small to be the result of a skill.
Essentially, the players who hit a lot of sac flies seem to do
so because they hit hit sac fly type flies often, with and without
a runner on third.

STATS concludes "So it appears conclusive that hitters cannot hit
sacrifice flies on purpose - even if they practice in the bATTING
cage."