What separates the best hitters from the middle of the pack is their ability to stay confident at the plate. Easier said than done. Hitting can be a real struggle. We get that here at The Hitting Lab. I once started a collegiate summer league 0-30. That is a miserable, miserable time, especially when you are away from home, in the middle of the Shenandoah Valley, sweating away your days.
When you start to struggle, you start to press. You start to doubt yourself and you start questioning the mechanics of your swing. "My swing is bad." is exactly the words that came out of my mind when I was 0-15 and "slumping." I let my doubt catch up to me big time and I was convinced that my swing mechanics had to be way off. I started trying new things...getting my foot down, shortening my load, directing the knob to the ball, trying to hit the ball the other way...blah blah blah.
All of it compounded on me until I hit rock bottom. When I finally decided to say, "Donald Duck it Mother (word that rhymes with duck) it," I started to trust what got me there in the first place. I started to believe in my natural swing again. What I failed to realize, which took me years to understand and appreciate is that my swing mechanics were not off...my TIMING and my PITCH SELECTION were way off.
So you hitters out there, please don't make the same mistake I made and start a season 0-30. Trust the work you put into your swing. Trust that your mechanics are good and ask yourself after every at bat whether it was a hit, an out, or a walk:
"How was my timing?"
"How was my pitch selection?"
90% of the time you made an out because one of these two things was off. If you believe in this process then you will trust your swing.
For a constant reminder, download, print out, and tape this to your locker:
