Curve Ball Drill

In yesterday’s post, I diagrammed and explained a drill that hitters can utilize to practice a slider from left handed and right handed pitchers.  Today’s drill is for hitters who would like to become better at hitting the curve ball.

The photo above shows the typical soft-toss drill most older hitters have experience with.  This normal batting drill can be used as a curve ball drill by simply changing the arc of the toss.  A typical soft-toss involves the thrower underhanding a ball without much of an arc on it.  Like the red arrow shows, the curve ball version of this drill has the thrower tossing the ball upwards thus creating a larger arc.  The batter’s job is to wait for the ball to get down to his knees before making contact.  The “Wrong” arrow shows where many hitters will want to make contact with the ball during this drill.  The point of the drill is to get the batter some experience in hitting the ball as it is coming down like a curve ball.  The star represents the location where the batter needs to make contact.  Low line drives and hard ground balls are the goal.

A couple variations of this drill:

• Have the thrower sit in a chair behind an L-screen about 10 feet in from of the batter.  The thrower lobs the ball over the screen with a similar arc as the previous drill.  Once again, the batter waits until the ball gets to his knees to make contact.
• Move the screen off to the side like yesterday’s drill to simulate a “slurve” or curve ball that breaks down and away.  The hitter waits once again on the arc and tries to hit a low line drive or hard ground ball up the middle or the other way.

Note: The toughest part to these “high arc” drills is mastering the actual arc on the part of the thrower.  It takes some practice to get the correct arc so that it mimics a curve ball and lands properly in the strike zone.  With a little practice it can become pretty simple.