Some refer to it as “small ball” and incorporate sometimes into their gameplan. Others do away with it completely and would prefer to not take the bat out of the hitter’s hands. Regardless it seems more often than not that the art of the sacrifice bunt is becoming extinct in modern baseball.
I work with a lot of young players and it breaks my heart when I ask them to bunt and they look at me like my dog does with her head cocked to the side. Recently while I was at the cage I had a father admit that his son’s coaches never spend the time to teach them how to bunt the ball, much less correctly. I’ve seen everything from a player facing the whole front side of his body to the pitcher to wrapping his fingers completely around the bottom of the bat barrel.
Bunting is a skill and it should not be used only for the bottom of your order players who have trouble making contact. Someone who masters this art can easily raise their batting average 20 to 30 points over the course of a season and help the team score more runs. Today’s focus will be on the sacrifice bunt. The main objective is for the batter to give himself up as an out in order to move the baserunners into scoring position. The most important thing to remember is to bunt the ball in fair territory. When you become more experienced you will want to place the ball down the third or first base side.
A.) Set up
1.) Stay in hitting stance.
2.) Don’t turn and face the pitcher.
B.) Approach
1.) Take your top hand and place it at the bottom of the bat barrel.
2.) Make a “thumbs up” with top hand by placing the bat in-between your thumb & index finger. This makes a shelf for your bat to sit on.
2.) Your bottom hand stays at bottom of bat near the knob.
3.) Rotate your hips and pivot your back foot to point where toes face the pitcher.
4.) The bat barrel is tilted slightly up and level with the top of strike zone. This way you know that any pitch above the bat is a ball.
5.) Bend at your knees and bring the bat down level to bunt the ball. Dropping the bat barrel may result in a pop-up.
6.) Use bottom hand to direct the bat towards 3rd or 1st base line. We want to always try and avoid hitting it directly back to the pitcher.
Remember that this is set up as a blog so we love to hear your comments. Please feel free to list them below and have a great day. Next time we will discuss the art of bunting for a hit.
