Situational hitting teaches kids that the pitch doesn’t determine the swing. The situation does. This drill runs through three scenarios back-to-back so they practice adjusting.
Equipment needed: 30 baseballs, soft toss equipment or a coach with a bucket, a net, one bat.
Setup: You stand 30 feet away with the bucket ready to soft toss. The hitter is at home plate with a net behind them.
How to run it:
- First situation: no outs, runner on second. Call “Just contact. No strikeout.” They get 10 tosses at waist height. Goal is a ball in play.
- Rest 30 seconds.
- Second situation: one out, runner on first. Call “Hit and run. You’re swinging on the next pitch no matter what.” They get 10 tosses. They’re forced to swing.
- Rest 30 seconds.
- Third situation: two outs, runner on third. Call “Fly ball or contact.” They get 10 tosses and decide mid-at-bat whether to swing up (fly ball) or level (groundball).
What to look for: Decision-making and approach adjustment. Do they swing differently in each situation? If they’re the same hitter every rep, they’re not thinking.
Variation: Add actual location difficulty to each situation (first situation gets waist-high tosses, second gets inside pitches, third gets outside pitches). Or for younger kids, just do one situation repeated 30 times so they nail the mentality.