when do you take your stride

[baseball2234]

hey, im getting totally confused and mixed up in my head because now i am seeing a lot of curve balls and i normally take my stride when the pitch is thrown but with curves i always get off balance. What is a good, proper way of striding to effectively hit fastballs and offspeed pitches

[swingbuster]

effectively hit fastballs and offspeed pitches

If they are blended skillfully and disgused you will not.

[baseball2234]

so then wats the approach? wait for a fastball and when you get one wack it? and for everything else take?

[virg]

stride early, easy, softly onto ball of foot. Heel comes down per pitch speed.

[jbooth]

hey, im getting totally confused and mixed up in my head because now i am seeing a lot of curve balls and i normally take my stride when the pitch is thrown but with curves i always get off balance. What is a good, proper way of striding to effectively hit fastballs and offspeed pitches

The problem could be that your hands move the bat too close to the same time that you stride. MLB hitters hold their shoulders still, and keep their hands back, while they stride, and they don't turn the shoulders or start the bat moving at the ball, until after the front foot is down. They determine what the pitch is, while they stride and hold the shoulders back, and then they unleash the upper body at the proper time for the type of pitch. It isn't easy. Even they struggle to not be early on a change-up or curve, with a pitcher who throws 95+ fastballs.

If you don't separate the lower body from the top, you will always struggle with either being late on fastballs, and early on change-ups. Many MLB hitters are using very short strides, so that the time between lower body movement and upper body movement is short. That way, they can wait longer before they do anything, which gives them time to determine the pitch type before they have to commit.

Summary, keep the hands back while you stride and read the pitch. Keep the stride short and quick so you can wait on the slow pitch and still be quick on the fastball.

[swingbuster]

watch Ecstein hit

AS Booth says...hands back, foot down, rotate ...great body control landing in the balanced torque position with some adjustability

[Sultan_1895-1948]

hey, im getting totally confused and mixed up in my head because now i am seeing a lot of curve balls and i normally take my stride when the pitch is thrown but with curves i always get off balance. What is a good, proper way of striding to effectively hit fastballs and offspeed pitches

No matter what approach you take you will be fooled at times. That's just baseball. What you can hope to do is minimize the impact of being fooled. By keeping your hands back you'll do yourself a huge favor. Also, how much are your hips sliding forward when you stride?

Anyway, I'd eliminate the stride altogher if I were you. Widen your stance up a bit. Your timing mechanism will be lifting your front heel up off the ground with a slight inward turn, but the ball of your foot will not leave the ground. When you are fooled doing this, you'll still be on the ball of your foot, relatively balanced, hands will be back, and your hips are still ready to fire.