The swing-to-contact is the meat of the swing.  It's where the hitter puts the bat on the ball.  The basic sequence of the swing-to-contact is illustrated in the photos below (I'm sorry the model in the photos isn't better looking, but he's the best I could get on my budget).  This is an “inside–out” swing because the bat stays inside of the pitch until contact.

1.      In PHOTO 1, the hitter is in the launch position

2.  PHOTO 2 - The hitter initiates the swing by pulling the knob of the bat directly at the ball with the hands.  The pulling is done mostly by the front arm.  Keep the front elbow down, the barrel of the bat back, and the front shoulder closed.

3.    PHOTO 3 - As the back elbow passes near the back hip, the lower body should start to come around – the back foot starts to roll over onto the big toe and the back knee starts to turn toward the front knee.  At this point, the hitter’s lower body is following the upper body.

     When the hands get about even with the hitter’s belly button, start rotating the barrel of the bat to the ball.  This is done mostly with the back elbow and wrists.  The rotation of the barrel to the ball should be a quick snap, as if whipping the barrel through the ball.  Note that the barrel rotation takes place between photos 3 and 4, and not in photos 1-3.  Keep pushing the hands out toward the ball (white arrow in photos 4 and 5), allowing your arms to fully extend toward the pitcher after contact (photo 5 - also see the Follow-Through page).  The sensation is that you’re throwing your hands at the ball.  The shoulders will start to open at this point.  As the barrel comes around, drive the back knee aggressively toward the front knee.  This will cause the lower body to rotate explosively into the ball at the same time you're rotating the barrel of the bat to the ball.  Keep the front leg straight (rigid).

4.    PHOTO 4 -    At contact, the back thigh should be vertical and the upper body should be aligned directly over the back thigh.  The front leg should be straight and angled out in front of the hitter.  The back foot should have rotated around toward the pitcher and should have rolled up onto the point of the toe with the heel high.

     Photo 4 also shows the hitting zone, where the sweet spot is on the path of the pitch.  If you hit the ball near the back of the hitting zone, the hands should be  a little bit in front of the baseball with the barrel lagging just behind the hands (see photo at right).  Try to hit the back inside part of the baseball.  This will yield a hit to the opposite field.  If you hit the ball out toward the front end of the hitting zone, the hands will be just behind the ball with the barrel in front resulting in a pulled ball.  In general, it's a good idea to let the ball penetrate deeply and take it the opposite way.  Hit inside pitches, however, more out in front of the plate.  No matter where in the hitting zone the batter hits the ball, the wrists should not have rolled over at contact; that is, the top hand should be palm-up, the bottom hand palm down.

     Now here’s the hard part.  The hitter has to keep his/her head down through contact.  There are two reasons for this.  The first reason is to keep your eye on the ball as long as possible.  The longer you see the ball, the better you can judge its trajectory.  Some books preach that you should watch the bat hit the ball, but I don't think you can really see either one: both the bat and ball are moving so fast that they are just blurs at contact.

The second (and real) reason to keep your head down is that your mechanics will fall apart if you swing your head out.  In step 3 above, the hitter’s front shoulder starts to open.  The head tends to go where the shoulders go, so the head will tend to swing out at this point.  This, in turn, will cause the hitter’s back side to drop, making it harder to match the swing plane to the pitch plane.  Even the pros struggle with keeping their head down – it’s one of the more common mechanical problems at the professional level.