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MASTERING THE MACHINE

The start of the season is right around the corner. College kids are about to start games, pro spring training is starting up and high school tryouts are a few weeks away. While every team and organization is different, the start of practice often means hitting off of pitching machines for most hitters. Today I want to discuss the best practices to look good hitting off of one. To start, I have never been a big fan of pitching machines. This comes mostly from personal bias that I had when I was a player and this led me to not have a machine at Elite Diamond Performance for the first three years. However, I realized that whether I like them or not, pro teams, college programs and high school coaches are still going to use them and I better get one to help my hitters. So, I purchased the Hack Attack Junior a few months ago and have been gradually exposing guys to it. Results have been mixed but many hitters struggle at first when facing the machine. I have found there to be three main things that hitters can do to improve their performance off of a pitching machine.

1. LOAD EARLY The number one reason that I see hitters struggle is