2 Strike Hitting Secrets!

Hey what's up fellas, how you doing? Manettinelli here. Alright, so today we're talking about a two-strike adjustment. What type of two-strike adjustments should you make? I ask this question a lot. Anytime we're talking about two-strike adjustments with our team, any age team, I ask them what adjustments need to be made. Players that are new to the program, lessons that I'm giving for the first time, a lot of players don't really know. And if they list anything, it's a physical adjustment. They'll say, oh my coach said to choke up. My coach said to spread out. Okay, physical adjustments, you can do that. You can choke up. There's hitters that choke up. You've seen Joey Bottle do it. You've seen a lot of players do it. Some players spread out. You've seen some players take a smaller stride. You've seen Bo Bichette. He's got a leg kick in his normal stride. He has a little toe tap. Just kind of heel up, swing. Okay, so physical adjustments are fine, but if you just make a physical adjustment, in my opinion, you're still not going to be a great two-strike hitter. So the objective with two strikes is to, one, put the ball in play, right? So we have to put the ball in play. Now, we're not always going to put it in play, but we're trying to increase the probability of us putting a ball in play. And the second thing that we're trying to do is not chase. One thing that you see with two strikes is hitters expand the zone, right? Coaches will say, can't strike out looking. You got a player that strikes out looking. Hey, can't strike out looking. Can't do it. If you put it in your mind that you're never going to get struck out looking, you're going to strike out swinging a lot because you don't want to give up on this pitch. So you swing at that pitch. Okay. So depends on the age a little bit. I understand young levels. Sometimes the umpire is giving out here and out here, right? So if we have an umpire at a young level that's going to give out there, well then we have to make the players aware of it and we have to allow the players to cover that zone. And sometimes they're going to have to chase a little bit away and Hey, that's the way the game's going. But if you're playing at a level where the umpire is not calling ridiculous pitches out here, then we can't just expand and swing at everything and say, well, we can't strike out looking. Okay. So I'd be careful with that as a coach to always get on the guys if they're striking out looking. Okay. Again, there's a, there's a time and place to say that to players, but I do think it's probably overly taught. So with all that being said, what are the adjustments, the mental adjustments, the approach adjustments on two strikes. The first thing is don't get beat away. A couple of things. One, most pitchers with two strikes are going to go away. They're going to try to expand off the plate. As you get older pitches, we'll start to pitch in a little bit more. But for me, even pitchers that pitch in at a higher level, they're pitching in just for show. So they're pitching in to keep you honest. And they're going away to get you out, right? With two strikes, right? So in for show and then away for dough, they try to make their money out there. So keep that in mind with two strikes. And so the fact that they're going to throw us away, we can't be beat away. And so when I'm hitting with two strikes, I'm slightly looking away. Okay. I need to cover that pitch. The other thing is if I'm looking away and I'm thinking about covering that pitch, I'm going to see the ball longer. I'm going to make the ball travel because in order to hit the outside pitch, I hit that outside pitch a little bit deeper than I hit the inside pitch. And so it gives me a longer, better look at it. Right? So looking away one, they throw the ball away more. Two gives me a longer look. All right. So that's the first thing. Now, number two, basically goes with number one. It's never be out front. Allow the ball to travel. Let the ball get here. If you try to hit the ball out front, if you're constantly trying to hit fastballs out front, well, then any off speed pitch, breaking ball, changeup is going to get you out. I can't try to hit the fastball way out here. And so never get beat out front. If you're going to get beat with two strikes, allow the ball to travel. Okay. So never get beat away, never get beat out front. And again, the longer I let the ball travel, the more information I get, I see the ball longer and I can decide, is that fastball, is that changeup, is that breaking ball? The next thing is middle oppo approach. And so when I get the two strikes as a righty, I'm trying to hit the ball to right center field. The reason I try to hit the ball to right center field is exactly why we talked about looking for the ball away and not getting beat out front. If I try to hit the ball that way to right center field for righty, to left center field for lefty, I allow the ball to travel. When I allow the ball to travel, I get more information as I just talked about. Right? So I have to think right center field gap. If I think right center field on the fastball, right? So I'm thinking fastball hit it right center field gap. And now all of a sudden it's a changeup or a curve ball. I can hit that out front. But if I'm trying to hit the fastball and I'm trying to pull it and it's not a fastball, it's a curve ball or a changeup. Well, my bat's already gone on the off speed pitch, right? So being able to hit the fastball middle away allows me to hit the off speed pitch and pull it. So really, really important. Now the next thing, and I don't know what number this is four or five is that you've got to stay in there on an inside pitch. And so what you see a lot of young players do is a pitch comes inside. Let's say it's a curve ball or any pitch inside, but especially the curve ball, right? And so if you're not willing to stay in there and get hit by a pitch, now I understand the ball's thrown at your head. You're not going to just stay in there, but if it's inside and you're one of those hitters, it's always trying to get out of there, right? You're always wanting to leave. You've got to stay in there because what happens is they throw a fastball in and now all of a sudden they throw a breaking ball and it looks like it's going to start at you and it breaks right down the middle, but you're so used to being the hitter that wants to get out of there. You can't stay in there on an off speed pitch. And so you've got to learn how to get hit properly and then trust that you can stay in there and you might get hit. Getting hits part of the game. If you don't want to get hit as a hitter, you're in big, big trouble. So the last thing is avoid guessing pitches. So I don't want to guess a pitch because if I guess wrong, I'm out. So if a pitcher has fastball curve ball and change up, I only have a 33% chance of guessing, right? So I'm probably going to guess wrong, right? Even if he has a fastball and a change up or a fastball and a curve ball, only two pitches, I'm just flipping a coin. Again, I'm only 50 50. And so with two strikes, I can't do that. With less than two, yeah, I can guess because if I guess fastball and it's curve ball and it's a strike, Oh well, let's go to two strikes, right? Go to one strike. But you do that with two strikes. I guess fastball curve ball, I'm out. I guess curve ball, fastball, I'm out. Right? And so you're not giving a competitive at bat. You're not increasing your probability of putting the ball in play. So for me, don't guess, don't guess when you get two strikes, when you get two strikes, use all the steps that we just talked about. That's going to give you the best chance, right? So don't guess again, try to hit the fastball away and I can hit the off speed pitch to the pull side. So let me know if there's any, I missed putting the comment section below, subscribe to the channel, hit the notification bell, give her a thumbs up, all that good stuff. We'll talk to you later. If you've enjoyed this video and want to learn more about building the elite swing, check out our new course. We have over two hours of content, almost 30 hitting drills. We break down the exact mechanics that you're going to want to implement into your swing. I've put the link in the description. If you want to go check it out.