What Is Pull Hitter in Softball?

Pulling the ball means making contact early enough that it travels to your own side of the field: a right-handed hitter pulls to left, a left-handed hitter pulls to right. Hitting to the opposite field means the reverse.

Pulled balls are typically hit harder, because contact happens when the bat is moving fastest through the zone. The trade-off is predictability — a known pull hitter will find three fielders waiting on that side.

Whether you're a pull hitter isn't a matter of opinion once you have a spray chart. Across tracked rec-league at-bats, pull-side contact outnumbers opposite-field contact by a wide margin, which is exactly why defensive shifts work.