As most people know, the game isn’t called fastpitch softball for nothing. Speed kills in our game, especially pitching speed. Faster pitching makes it tougher for hitters to hit.

But not impossible. One of the big keys is getting the front foot down on time. If you do that, the rest gets easier. But getting the front foot down on time varies depending on the pitcher’s speed.

There’s actually a math formula that explains it. I’m no math whiz, believe me, but it makes sense even to me:

time = distance/velocity

In other words, the amount of time you have to swing the bat is a function of how far away the pitcher is divided by the speed of the pitch.

We know that in a tournament or league, the distance is constant. Whether it’s 35, 40 or 43 feet, that will always be the same within that event. But as the speed of the pitch goes up, the amount of time goes down.

For example, let’s say the pitcher is throwing 52 mph from 43 feet. We need to convert mph to feet per second, so we multiply the number by 1.46. (The actual multiplier is a bit longer than that, but 1.46 makes it simpler.) What we wind up with is the ball moving 75.92 feet per second. We’ll assume a constant speed, even though we know the ball actually slows a bit as it travels. We also will assume she has a six foot stride, so will actually deliver the ball from 37 feet away. That means our equation is 37/75.92 = 0.487 seconds reaction time.

Now let’s assume everything else is the same, but she’s throwing 58 mph. That makes our equation  37/84.68 = 0.436 seconds. That a difference of about 5/100ths of a second. Doesn’t seem like much — it’s less than the blink of an eye. Yet in those 5/100ths of a second, if you’re timed for the slower speed the ball will go from the optimum location to hit it to deeper in the zone, likely handcuffing the hitter.

This is what your hitters have to realize. They absolutely must adjust their timing to the pitch speed or they will be late getting the bat through the zone. Not horribly late, necessarily, but just enough to turn a good hit into a weak one.

It also works in reverse, by the way. If you’re timed for a 58 mph pitch and the pitcher is throwing 52 mph, you’ll be too early and will either miss entirely or “pool cue” the ball, resulting in a weak hit.

Again, the adjustment is when the front foot lands. Get it down on time, or even a little early, and you will be better off than being late.

Despite all the money that’s been invested in bat technology in the last few years, and the increase in extra base hits as a result, the short game still remains an important part of fastpitch softball. Some days a pitcher just has your number. Some days the weather, the umpire’s strike zone or other factors beyond your control conspire against the long ball. Whatever the reason, when you’re playing for one run you need to be able to go to your short game.

As regular readers know I’m not a fan of the sacrifice bunt. Statistically, automatically bunting a runner from first to second with a sacrifice doesn’t do you a whole lot of good. Your chances of scoring from first with no outs are 43%; your chances of scoring from second with one out are 45%. Is it really worth giving up a precious out to gain a 2% advantage? In most cases no, in my opinion. I’d much rather see the hitter improve her skills and try bunting for a hit instead. If you can pull it off, you’ll have two runners on, no one out, and a lot of pressure on the defense to perform.

Of course, it all starts with being able to get the bunt down when you need it. With that in mind, here are a few tips.

1. Bunt with the end of the bat. All too often I see bunters sticking the sweet spot out over the plate and letting the ball make contact there. On a $300 bat, about $275 of the cost is in the sweet spot. It’s designed to make the ball go farther, even with a crappy swing. So why would you want a bunt to be hit there? Use the end of the bat, one of the dead zones, to make contact and you’ll be able to leave the bunt short instead of hitting it right to a fielder. A good way to practice is to take some bright colored duct tape (or do you say duck tape) and wrap it around the end of an old bat. Then focus on taking the taped part to the ball.
   
2. Cover half the plate to start. To help you make #1 happen, don’t stick the bat out so the whole plate is covered from the start. Instead, cover the inside half. That puts the end of the bat around the middle, making it easier to pull in a little for an inside pitch or reach out a little for an outside pitch. Keep in mind once you have the bat lined up with the ball you’re unlikely to move it, so if the sweet spot is in the middle it’ll probably stay there. Using this technique also protects your hands a little more. They’ll be in front of your body instead of exposed to the side; if your hands are going to get hit with the ball so will your body, so you’re more likely to move.
   
3. Pivot on the heel of the front foot. If you have your feet lined up correctly to hit and then pivot on the balls of both feet, you’ll wind up “walking a tightrope.” Instead of focusing on getting the bat to the ball you’ll be focused on regaining your balance. If you pivot on the heel of your front foot and ball of your back foot you’ll have a little side-to-side separation that will give you more stability.
   
4. Receive the ball, don’t punch it. Not sure why this happens, but for some reason many young hitters like to punch at the ball as it comes to contact. That will have the opposite effect of what you want. Instead, receive it or “catch” it with the bat. A good way to practice that is to tape an old glove to the end of a bat and actually try to catch balls that are tossed to you. (To give credit where it’s due, I learned that one from Bob Kowalke years ago.)
   
5. Start in a normal position in the batter’s box. You’ve probably been to clinics or read books or seen video where you’re told that hitters should move to the front of the batter’s box for a bunt. If you’re doing the dreaded sacrifice bunt then sure, why not? But if you’re bunting for a hit, or as a surprise, moving to the front is a dead giveaway. You might as well call out to the other coach “We’re bunting now!” Staying in a normal position in the box helps you disguise the strategy much better. Sure, it’s a little tougher because the ball doesn’t start in fair territory. But if you’re practicing bunting regularly it shouldn’t be that big of an issue.
   
6. Exception to #5 – bunts up the line. If your goal is to bunt up the line, especially the first base line for a right-handed hitter, try moving back in the box. It gives you a better angle, letting the ball roll from foul territory to fair, with less chance of it rolling back foul.
   
7. Practice, practice, practice. These days, teams seem to tell their players to bunt five pitches, then work on swinging away. That’s not enough to get good at it — and good is what you need to be if circumstances dictate that a bunt is must. Put real emphasis on it. Have a bunting day, where you do nothing but bunt. If your hitters will get multiple sessions in a practice have them use one for nothing but bunts. Make a game of it too. Place a bucket in front of the plate at a location you want the hitters to bunt to and offer a prize for anyone who can get it in the bucket. Draw point values in the dirt and have hitters bunt to see who can get the most points, again for a prize. Split your team in two and have a do or die contest — get the bunt down or you’re out, with the team rewarded for their player being the last one standing.  Players love competition, so if you make bunting a competition they’ll take a lot more interest in it.

Those are just a few ideas on how to improve your team’s ability to bunt. What have you done? And how important do you think the short game is today?

This morning I was thinking about one of my hitting students, a high school freshman named Amy Abel. Amy goes to Carmel Catholic High School and is playing second base on varsity. (Normally I don’t get that specific, but in this case I might as well as you will see.)

I haven’t seen much of Amy since her high school season started, and was thinking about emailing her parents tonight to see how things were going. But I didn’t have to, Instead, I got an email from them suggesting I read this article.

My first reaction was wow! If you didn’t follow the link, the highlights are that after four games she is leading the team in batting with a .600 batting average, and has hit five doubles in the first couple of weeks. Again, this is as a freshman. That’s pretty darned cool.

Attention college coaches: this is a girl you’ll probably want to keep an eye on. Think of where she’ll be in three more years!

I was working with a young slapper tonight, and she was having trouble keeping her shoulders parallel to the plate. She could do it with practice runs, but once the ball was on its way her shoulders pulled forward.

I worked with her a bit on pulling the left shoulder back when I happened to look down at her feet. I saw that when she took a jab step back, she turned her foot so her toes were facing forward (toward the pitcher). Hmmm, I thought, no wonder she’s having trouble.

When you throw overhand, one of the tricks to help you get into the correct position is to turn the throwing side foot so the ankle bone is facing toward the target. You do that to open up the hips so you’re sideways to the target. It works pretty well for throwing.

But turning the foot when slapping works against you by doing the same thing. It pulls your body around so you are sideways to the plate instead of facing it.

Correcting it is easy — and challenging. It’s a bit of a difficult habit to break, but it can be broken. The hitter simply needs to work on her jab step back, keeping the toes pointed toward the plate. That will strict the motion, allowing the shoulders to stay in toward the plate.

I was having a discussion with one of my students last week about hitting and her approach to the plate when she admitted, “If I strikeout, it really bums me out. It’s tough to go up and hit again.” (I doubt she really said bums me out, but that’s the way my 54 year old brain remembers it.)

I understand that. No one likes to go to the plate and strikeout. It’s the ultimate failure — you had three (or more) shots at hitting the ball and missed on all of them. But really, strikeouts are a part of the game. Since all of fastpitch softball is essentially built on failure and your ability to overcome it, hitters have to learn to get past the immediate feeling and go on with the rest of the game. Otherwise they’re not going to have too much fun. Unless it’s becoming a habit, in which case they probably need to work on seeing the ball better.

So to help her gain a little perspective, I gave her a Babe Ruth quote: Every strikeout brings me one at bat closer to my next home run.

That got me to thinking. I know the Bambino hit 714 homes runs in his career, a record that stood for many years and was considered unbreakable until Hank Aaron broke it. But how many times did The Sultan of Swat strikeout? The answer, according to the Baseball Almanac , is 1,330. Or almost twice as many times as he hit home runs.

That’s a lot, isn’t it? Must put him pretty close to the top of the list, right? Not even close. The Babe actually sits at #95, just behind Dean Palmer and just ahead of Deron Johnson. Which of course begs the question who are your all-time leaders? Surely they must be some pretty bad players.

Well, first of all in order to make the list you had to have a lot of at bats, which really bad players don’t get. That narrows it down some. In truth, the top 10 all-time includes some names you might recognize. In order, they are: Mr. October Reggie Jackson (with a whopping 2,597); Jim Thome; Sammy Sosa; Andrews Galarraga; Jose Canseco; Willie Stargell; Mike Schmidt; Fred McGriff; Tony Perez and Mike Cameron. Lots of Hall of Famers on that list. Thome and Cameron are still active too, so they have a chance to move up.

Right behind these guys is a player whose swing is often used as the model youth baseball and softball players should follow: good ol’ A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez. That’s probably not news to you Yankees fans. Other prominent names in the top 50 include Lou Brock, Mickey Mantle, Adam Dunn, Derek Jeter, Barry Bonds (the current career home run record holder) and Willie Mays. Even Pete Rose, who holds the all-time record for hits in a career with 4,256 struck out 1,143 times.

If you’d like to see the full list, you can find it here. It definitely puts things into perspective as you check out your favorite superstars and see how often they struck out too. 

The point, though, is they didn’t let it get them down. They just put it behind them and went on to the next at bat. That’s what fastpitch hitters have to do too. You can say you’re taking your cue from the Hall of Famers, and the greatest to ever play the game.