Ben Zobrist Quotes

For me, the strike zone has always been, If it's something I can drive, it's most likely a strike. I feel like if it's a ball I really can't do much with, it's most likely a ball. So that's just always been my approach.

Once I found my swing, I feel like if I put a good swing on it, I feel like it's got a good chance to go wherever - left, right, center - it doesn't matter. But I'm not just out here going to swing for home runs of anything. I'm just trying to put a good swing on the baseball.

My batting mentality is to see the ball and hit it. I don't know what bowlers see while batting.

I looked for the same pitch my whole career, a breaking ball. All of the time. I never worried about the fastball. They couldn't throw it past me, none of them.

Joe Torre would tell you to make sure you can hit the ball on the outside part of the plate.

I think my mindset and my approach is to hit the ball hard, whether it be first pitch or work the count.

If a pitcher goes up there and he's throwing a ball and it's a breaking ball down and away or a fastball up and in, a perfect pitcher's pitch, and you're able to just foul it off and stay alive in the at-bat, just keep grinding, keep working through the at-bat and hoping for that mistake that he's going to make. And if he doesn't, then you walk.

I don't see pitches down the middle anymore - not even in batting practice.

Pitchers make adjustments, and it's up to the hitters to readjust and sort of tweak what they do.

Basically, hitters fall into a pattern, and once you know what they like, you can set them up for the putout with something else.

Some batters, and good ones too, scoff at the whole theory of place hitting, calling it a myth. They are wrong, however.

To be a good hitter you've got to do one thing - get a good ball to hit.

I have to go with the approach I had in Triple-A. I need to take a lot of those fastballs I am seeing to left field. Also must gear up for the changeup and take them up the middle.

Guessing what the pitcher is going to throw is 80% of being a successful hitter. The other 20% is just execution.

That's one thing I learned from watching great hitters hit. A lot of hitters, they're ready to hit from pitch one.

I think the biggest adjustment I've made before coming here was going from High A to Double A. I was going in facing pitchers who had more experience and knew how to throw all their stuff for strikes and in hitter's counts, things like that.

You never hit a good slider or curveball; you just try to go after the mistakes.

If someone throws you a good slider, you're not going to hit it. You've got to always hunt those ones that kind of pop up or hang thigh-high or up.

If they are going to nibble and try to go below the zone or off the plate a little bit, I want to try and get a pitch in the zone that I can do damage on.

There is no doubt that because I am a switch hitter I have one of the best offensive advantages that a hitter can have.

Hitting is business. With two strikes you really protect that plate.

I was a contact hitter my whole career but I learned how to handle the ball inside. And Ted Williams played a big part in that. He gave me the advice on how to handle inside pitches.

The toughest thing in hitting shouldn't be deciding when to swing. It is, for me, deciding when not to swing. You should be swinging from the time you get into the batter's box until something says don't swing.

The way those clubs shift against Ted Williams, I can't understand how he can be so stupid not to accept the challenge to him and hit to left field.

Working my way through different formats has not changed my batting approach much.