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Hey guys, what's up? I've got a great baseball hitting drill for you today and it's called
the Jose Lobaton Hitting Drill and I call it that because Jose Lobaton, Major League
Catcher, taught me this drill. He's been coming in to get ready for Spring Training and he
does, he's a switch hitter first of all, but he does this drill when he's swinging from
the left handed side. Ok? And what he's trying to do in this drill is he has noticed that
a lot of pitchers in the Big Leagues are pitching him lower, slower baseballs when he's on the
left side. Slower pitches coming in, change ups, things like that. So, in this drill,
what he's working on is, he'll have the *** throw slow balls that don't go any higher
than chest level and then die off and fall out in front of the plate. Ok? So, what he
had me do was set a ball up about a foot and a half to two feet in front of the plate and
then all he's trying to do is, I'm trying to hit that baseball as I'm tossing it, not
letting it get higher than his chest, and he's just trying to stay inside of that baseball,
go down there and get it, but stay behind it and hit a line drive, as opposed to rolling
over and hitting a ground ball. Here you can see Lobaton doing a great job of getting to
that ball, but staying behind it at the same time and hitting that ball line drive slightly
opposite field. So, here's a clip of Lobaton in Game 3 of the playoffs where he hits a
walk off home run off of Uehara from the left hand side on a pitch exactly like we're talking
about. He got the first in this at bat was a split finger down in the zone that he swung
and missed on and this is the second pitch that he gets from Uehara that is also a split
finger and he does exactly like he's trying to do in the drill, stay behind that ball
and get a good piece of the bat on it and as you see, it's a walk off home run.