How to Attack the Baseball Properly
May 13, 2021
Hi Coaches!
I just got finished coaching our first tournament this past weekend with our 13U team. Now with 13U, it's their first time on the big field, so the games a bit slower and I noticed a lot of our infielders struggled attacking the baseball and understanding how much time they had to throw the runner out at first base.
I'm going to give you a quick tip here as to what you can do at practice to speed it up and make it more game like. What I like to do is take one of your fastest runners on the team and time them from home to first base. Let's just say for instance it's 4.5 seconds at the younger age. Now you can put your infielders on the clock and let them know you have 4.5 seconds from the time the ball is hit, until the time we must field it and make that throw & the first baseman catches it.
4.5 seconds, so now at practice they're playing with a little bit more tempo right, the’re training their body to play at game speed. I notice that for a lot of our guys we've been indoors & we’ve been practicing on a smaller field. They are taking their routine ground balls throwing to first base and now suddenly when the game comes on, they feel rushed, get excited, and they don't want to be late.
Everything seemed a little bit jumpy a little bit too quick for them. At baseball practice, we want to make sure we put pressure on our players -- so grab a stopwatch or you can use the stopwatch on your phone and time your infielders to make sure that they're moving their feet their attacking the baseball and making a good strong throw.
Before you know it, they start to build up that internal clock in their head so they know exactly how much time they have depending on the speed of the runner, depending on the pace of the ball, and where their position on the field is to make sure they get that ball to first base in time!
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