As explained earlier, it is not easy to attack the inside pitch even if you build a ‘wall’ of hitting. Besides, if it is a fast ball that is deeply embedded in the body, it is really difficult for the batter to respond.
A fastball crosses home plate in 0.4 seconds. No matter which course the ball heads, the time will be the same, but the batter feels differently. In my experience, if the outside ball flies in 0.4 seconds, it feels like the inside ball passes in half that amount, 0.2 seconds. Maybe it’s because I’m close to the batter’s eyes, and I have a fear of sand dunes.
This is why an inside pitch thrown accurately is so powerful. If you look at hitters’ hot and cold zones, there are very few cases where the inside ball batting average is more than 30%. Even if it’s a hard hitter.
Even if it’s difficult, you have to respond to the inside pitch.
Still, the batter has to somehow counter the inside pitch. The inside ball batting average should be at least .25. Also, sometimes you have to hit a home run. If the hitter is helpless on the inside ball, the pitcher will only throw the ball on that course.
The inside ball is the most difficult course for hitters. Theoretically, there are several solutions. The easiest thing is for the batter to step back. In this case, the outside of the strike zone is too far away from the hitter. It is like giving up the outside pitch.
The second is an open stance. For right-handed hitters, this means pointing the front foot (left foot) toward the shortstop or third baseman (back from the center of the body). This will give him a similar effect to stepping out of the plate.
Even with an open stance, the back foot (right foot) is not far from home plate. It’s better than having both legs fall backwards, but it’s true that even with an open stance, outside balls are uncomfortable for hitters.
Extremely open stances are not liked by hitting coaches. Similarly, an extreme closed stance is not the norm. This is a position in which the hitter closes his front foot and points it toward the second baseman. With this stance, it is easy to deal with the outside ball, but it is difficult to deal with the inside ball.
When the hitter extends his front foot in the direction of the pitcher, he can attack both the inside and outside of his body. It is also convenient to maximize propulsion through weight transfer. Ted Williams said in The Science of Hitting, “90% of the good hitters I’ve seen in 30 years, such as Joe DiMaggio and Stan Musial, have straight legs toward the ball. Their stride never deviated more than 10 degrees from the pitcher.”
I generally agree with Williams. No, to be precise, I don’t think the stance is that important. Some hitters, like Giancarlo Stanton described in the previous series, are good at hitting outside balls even with an open stance. You just have to hit it in your own style.
It is not easy to make a proper hit if you hit the ball in the body like when you hit the ball in the middle. It’s easy to hit the handle rather than the sweet spot of the bat. In this case, the bat can break, and a large shock is transmitted to the hand, which interferes with the next hit.
I used a hip turn to hit the inside ball. It is to rotate the body with both elbows attached to the upper body as much as possible. In the 2009 World Baseball Classic (WBC) Asia Round 1st place match, the swing was made when he hit the final stroke from Japanese starter Hisashi Iwakuma.
Batting timing is often late when targeting inside pitches. At that time, I momentarily leaned back and swung. As the upper body moves backward, it makes up for the late hitting point. The heating point that will be formed near the navel is changed to near the forefoot.
There is also an effect that the axis of rotation of the hip turn changes when the batter tilts the upper body. In normal cases, the axis of rotation of the batter’s waist is close to 0 degrees, which is horizontal to the ground. When attacking a fast ball to the body (especially on a high course), momentarily bend the right leg and tilt the waist, the rotational axis of the body becomes 20 to 30 degrees. In this way, there is a difficulty in narrowing the contact zone. Instead, if the impact is accurate, even if you swing the level, you get the effect of the ball floating naturally.
I hit that blow around 2012. After seeing that, Park Byeong-ho asked several times, “How can he do that swing?” I did my best to explain myself. Afterwards, Byeong-ho Park further developed a swing that suited him.
Park Byeong-ho bent his back more than I did in his prime. He sometimes even felt like he was hitting while lying down. In 2014 and 2015, when Park Byung-ho hit more than 50 homers in the season, such swings were especially common. He became a better long hitter than I was. Park Byeong-ho had a different attitude in thinking about his hitting and actively asking questions if necessary. Besides, he did a good job of applying it to suit himself. He’s a really good hitter.
As fear approaches, so does retirement.
Hitting the inside ball is an advanced technique. My swing also didn’t have a target point from the beginning. This swing was created after a lot of trial and error. Technique is important for this hit, but quickness must follow. 토토사이트
When I was in my mid-30s, it became difficult to swing like that anymore. It’s because the volatility has gone down. Another reason is poor stamina. If you lean back and swing, you need a lot of waist. When I was young, it was possible because I had the strength, but later that didn’t work. A ball that would have been a home run in the past was caught by an outfielder.
When attacking the inside ball became my weakness, and when I became conscious of the inside pitch, I knew I was close to retirement. I’m getting more and more afraid of pitching.
It was a match against the Samsung Lions on August 11, 2017. I hit a two-run home run in the second inning. The moment the swing was over, I felt pain in my side (oblique muscle). When I returned to the dugout and told my condition, the trainer said, “You need to get out of the game.” But I said, “No. I’ll hit it gently,” and entered the second at-bat in the 5th inning. In the end, the muscle tore even bigger while swinging.
If he had been replaced when he first felt pain, the injury would not have grown. But I was overdoing it for no reason, and things got bigger. It took 41 days to return after rehabilitation treatment. Besides, the feel at the time was quite good. Thinking about it now, it was pretty stupid.
Even after returning, the trauma remains. After his side muscles were torn once, he was psychologically atrophied. I’m a style that makes hip turns strong, but then I felt like I was going to get hurt again. Even when I was a little tired, I felt a pain in my side. Then the batting form I had built for a long time crumbled little by little.
Even from the season following his injury, he recorded a batting average of 30% for two years. But my swing got dull. The number of home runs decreased to 10 in 2018 and 6 in 2019. He had neither the body nor the swing to deal with the ball on his side. I decided to retire when I was terrified of the inside pitch.