I’ve heard baseball announcers talk about how difficult it is for a left-handed batter to get a hit off of a left-handed pitcher, but I’ve never heard anything about the difficulty of a RHB facing a RHP. Why not? Why isn’t the mirror-image situation the same??
I’ve also heard it said that LHB’s usually like hitting balls low in the strike zone, but RHB’s usually do not. How can this be true?
Thanks.
'Tis the same.
Not a general rule, in my opinion.
RHBs do have trouble with RHPs to a certain extent, but it usually not as pronounced as the lefty-lefty problem because there are more righthanders and righthanded batters have more experience in facing right-handed pitchers.
Left-handed batters and pitchers are still the exception, so you don’t get as much in game experience with that situation.
As for RHBs like the ball and LHB liking the ball low, I believe that concept exists firmly in the mind of Tim McCarver, who is not one to provide empirical evidence.
It may be true, but I don’t believe that there is any proof that a reasonable person not named McCarver would believe.
There may be no real difference between LHB vs. LHP and RHB vs. RHP, but they are not exactly symetrical.
If a RHP throws an off-speed pitch to a RHB the RHB will likely pull it, which means that low-velocity hits will tend toward the left side of the field, and the RHB will have a better chance of beating the throw to 1st.
If a LHP throws an off-speed pitch to a LHB, again the LHB is likely to pull it, which will send a low-velocity hit to the right, which will make it easier to throw him out at 1st.
Possibly you could say that the LHB would prefer a pitch low in the strike zone simply because he can get more power that way, but I would think most hitters would prefer pitches low in the strike zone.
I don’t think there’s any easy rule at all, because I’ve always preferred high pitches (though admittedly I am not even close to a major league hitter) as I find I get more line drive hits that way. It’s just going to depend on your swing and what you like hitting.
RH hitters face lots of RHPs, whereas the odds of a LH hitter facing a LHP are greatly reduced versus RHP to RH hitter.
Therefore, just about any RH hitter has alot more experience facing RHP than any LH hitter has facing LHP.
Exactly right. And remember that this occurs at every level starting when the player is about 8 years old.