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