Read Brown

When I was playing with the St. Louis Cardinals, we did a drill that made me super uncomfortable. Pitchers started throwing 100 MPH. One thing that helped me adjust to the increased velocity was actually training at speeds that felt faster than the game. We would take the pitching machine out on the field and crank it up as fast as we could. It wasn't pretty. The ball would cut. Sink. Dive. Take off. Sometimes it was just uncomfortable trying to hit it. But that was the point. We were forcing our eyes and bodies to adjust to something that felt faster and harder than what we'd see in the game. Then when we faced normal game velocity... The game felt slower. If I were training a hitter struggling with velocity today, here's what I'd do: Take 15–20 swings against a machine set faster than what you normally face. Don't worry about crushing every ball. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Then bring the machine back down to the velocity you normally see and take another 15–20 swings. Feel the difference. Because there's one thing I learned playing this game... If you want the game to slow down, sometimes you have to make practice speed up, and much harder. Thank you for reading, - Jermaine Curtis P.S. - If you enjoyed this, and thought it was helpful, please share it. (This tells me you want more content like this)