Practice drills are an effective way to help your players improve as athletes in slowpitch softball. To be successful, your team needs to hone its skills individually and as a group. Regular practices will help you find any flaws in performance and aid in correcting them for the future. Through slowpitch softball drills and hard work, your team will surely improve and become more successful.
Two-tee Target Drill
The two-tee target drill helps your players learn to hit line drives and hit the ball up the middle more often. You need two batting tees, two softballs and a bat for this drill. Place the first tee about two inches in front of home plate. Set the second tee be about two feet in front of the first tee on the infield. Place a softball on each tee. The object of the drill is for your batter to hit the first softball off the tee into the second softball on the second tee. The second softball should project on a line into the middle of the field after the impact from the first softball. Your batter focuses on his stride and swing to successfully hit the balls. As he becomes more successful, move the second tee further away.
Soft-toss Drill
The soft-toss drill will help your players with vision at the plate and batting form. Set up three throw-down bases, or another object to represent home plate, in foul territory along the right field line about 10 feet apart. Give pitchers a bucket of balls each and place them about 20 feet away from each home plate. Each pitcher will pitch continuous slow pitches to their batters until the buckets are empty. The batters must hit each pitch into the outfield and quickly prepare their batting stance for the next pitch. Pitchers rapidly pitch the next softball after one is hit. When a bucket is empty, players switch so that the players pitching get to hit and the players batting pitch.
Cinderblock Drill
The cinderblock drill helps your players with hand-eye coordination at the plate. You will need a bucket of tennis balls, a bat, a hitting net and a cinderblock. Place the cinder block on the ground and the hitting net about eight feet in front of it. Have the batter stand in his batting stance near the cinder block, as if it were home plate. Stand close to the cinderblock and bounce tennis balls, one at a time, off the cinder block and have the batter try to hit them into the net. Continue the drill until the bucket of balls is empty. Repeat the drill if the player needs more work, or have another player take a turn.
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