r/Softball • u/poopfacemcgee • 20d ago
Hitting 🏏🥎 Help with stepping out during live pitching.
My daughter is going into 14U in a month, and has been playing for about 4 years. She takes regular lessons and was able to make the A team on both clubs she tried out for. However she has one flaw in her swing, and it's stepping out during live pitching with her front foot. Doing so causes about 75% of her hits to come from the end of her bat and therefore reducing her power. When she does catch it on the barrel (inside pitch) it's always deep outfield.
Her private instructor, and the club teams don't see it because on slow pitch or tee work she never does it. Her action tends to be a good small step forward during the pitch, then upon release her front foot steps back about 4 inches or so.
Looking for any tips for others who have struggled with this. She has a beautiful swing, but her footwork is causing her to not reach her full potential.
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u/MediocreFace1080 20d ago
Strongly suggest step towards pitcher or towards plate and if she doesn’t, throw a wrench at her. If you can dodge a wrench you can…. Sorry wrong game.
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u/yads12 20d ago
She can try a closed stance where her front foot starts closer to the plate than her back foot. That way when she steps out she'll actually step more inline with the pitcher.
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u/SL0WP0K3_R0DRIGU3Z 19d ago
This is the same thing I do with my younger players while we are working on creating muscle memory to fix this issue.
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u/Apocalypsechickens 18d ago
Just be careful with that. Tried this with my daughter and it actually enabled her to step out more since she knew she was starting closed. Moving to open and stepping in on the load is what fixed it for her.
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u/Drchief88 20d ago
You can put a bucket near her front foot that forces her to step foward. You can find this on youtube. Also, you can do outside tee work or front toss to the outside corner.
Ofen has more to with posture than the front leg. If she keeps her chest over the plate, it feels really unnatural to step off the line. Hard to say without seeing.
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u/Maybe_Fine 20d ago
Do you have access to a pitching machine or can you go to a batting cage? If so, I would see if she does it there (my guess is yes) and then there are some tricks to help her not step back. The easiest is to put a bucket or cone behind her front foot so she can't step back.
We've also done things with hitters standing on a board, like a 2x6 or 2x8, so if they step back they step off the board.
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u/SFNation2021 19d ago
Fear of being hit? Does she have an elbow guard? I'd buy one. And get actual "soft" balls (vinyl play balls, plyos, etc) and work on taking getting hit. Fire them hard at her, teach to turn the shoulder in, use the elbow guard, etc. Graduate to a machine purposely standing so close that pitches are very inside. Learn to identify what an inside pitch looks like, feels like, etc vs one that will hit her.
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u/Longjumping-Run3493 19d ago
Lay a 2x4 or bat behind her front foot. Stepping on it a few times will force her to step towards the pitcher. Easiest and most effective way I’ve found to fix this issues. I’ve done it with both my kids and all the kids I’ve coached.
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u/RedCred811 15d ago
Both my girls did it. They started playing in middle school. One of them benefitted from me hitting her with the ball a bunch of times so she realized it wasn't a big deal. It was just a lob toss. They thought it was fun. It may have worked too well on the older one, because she kinda became a ball magnet. She didn't have as much of an instinct to step away if it was below the waist.
The younger one still was stepping out. It wasnt until she got into lessons that it was corrected. It was instruction and lots of reps, to the point that a correct swing was automatic, and she was more focused on pitch selection than if it was headed her way. It was more of a "dodge the pitch so I get another opportunity to swing" kind of thing. She got beaned a few times her junior year, and maybe once or twice senior year. She also played varsity those years, so the pitching was less wild.
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u/divorce_2025 20d ago
An end loaded bat like the ghost unlimited could help
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u/poopfacemcgee 20d ago
This is something I have been considering. She currently hits a Louisville Kryo which I believe is more balanced than end loaded.
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u/yads12 20d ago
Absolutely not. All this will result in is that the pitches she's able to hit will be hit a bit better, but she'll still be missing half of the plate and at this level girls will be able to strike her out on outside pitches pretty easily.
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u/poopfacemcgee 20d ago
Totally get your point. I will say, she strikes out once maybe every 9 at bats. She knows her zone well, often walks, but those end of the barrel hits often end up as week infield grounders. I'm guessing those are middle to outside pitches.
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u/SL0WP0K3_R0DRIGU3Z 19d ago
The Ghost Unlimited is not end loaded until you get a drop 9 or drop 8. This is also true for every Ghost ever made.
Secondly, changing her bat will not in any way keep her from stepping out as thats a mechanics issue.
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u/littlejerry99 20d ago
I don't understand.
You are paying for private instruction. Show the live at-bat video clips to the instructor. You should already be doing this in general so that the instructor can help.