For El Paso’s Tirso Ornelas, it was easy. Mom hit from the left side.
“Everyone in my family is right-handed, but my mom is the only one who is a lefty, and I’ve always been kind of mama’s boy,” laughed Ornelas as he explained why he hits left-handed but throws from the right side. “My dad also played baseball professionally and didn’t think it was a bad idea either.”
Tirso Ornelas unleashes his fluid left-handed swing. (Photo: Jorge Salgado)
About 10 percent of the population is left-handed, but roughly 20% of major league pitchers are left-handed and an estimated 35% bat from the left side. That discrepancy isn’t because of some massive innate difference between people with different dominant hands.
Batting from the opposite side allows hitters to see the ball better, attack breaking pitches that are moving into their hitting zone, and also start a step closer to first base.
Meanwhile, defensively, it’s right-handers who get an advantage, playing any position on the field, while lefties are limited to the outfield and first base.
That leads many natural righties to learn to hit from the left side while continuing to throw with their dominant hand.
In many cases, kids who grow up with a father who played baseball at a high level will have a son who, although they are is right-handed, will hit from the left side. Jackson and Ethan Holliday, sons of former all-star Matt Holliday, were both selected in the first five picks of the 2022 and 2025 drafts, and are left-handed-hitting infielders.
Jackson grew up in major league clubhouses, and one of the first players he tried to mimic was Craig Counsell, who, before he was the Chicago Cubs’ manager, was a long-time lefty-hitting infielder with a rather unique stance.
“I started playing hockey before I played baseball,” said Padres’ second baseman Jake Cronenworth on how he became a left-handed hitter. “I always shot left-handed, so swinging a baseball bat from that side was pretty natural.
“I could probably hit right-handed in batting practice, but would have no chance in a game.”
Reiss Knehr was a two-way player at Fordham. (Photo: Fordham University Athletics).
“My dad wanted me to be a shortstop, and he knew there were more right-handed pitchers out there, so he wanted me to have the advantage,” said former El Paso Chihuahuas closer Reiss Knehr, who was a two-way player at Fordham University.
“He put me on that side of the plate and said, “Stay there.’ My brother also hits left-handed. I’m left-handed for anything that has to do with two hands, hockey, and lacrosse.”
Most of the players, when asked how they learned to hit from the opposite side, usually end up like Knehr, where their dads thought it was a good idea to hit left-handed, as others had just picked up the bat that way.
“It’s just the way that I picked up the bat as a kid,” said Jackson Merrill when asked. “Everyone thinks it’s something my dad had me do, but it’s always just been the natural way for me to swing.”
For his travel-ball teammate, James Wood, it was easy: he wanted to be Barry Bonds.
“I honestly don’t know, ” laughed Wood when asked. “I want to say it’s because I loved watching Barry [Bonds] as a kid, but honestly, I think it’s just how I ended up picking up the bat.”
There are also a few left-handed players who learned to throw right-handed to play more positions.
The only thing Corey Rosier does right-handed is throw. (Photo: Jeff Nycz)
“My theory – and I don’t know a hundred percent – I tried to throw left-handed and then someone told me I could play more positions if I were right-handed,” said former TinCaps outfielder Corey Rosier, who is now in the Red Sox organization. “So I started to throw right-handed.
“I do most things left-handed, throwing is really the only thing that I do with my right – so I was good where I was at,” when asked why he never switch-hit.
Eric Sogard, a 5-foot-9 infielder – maybe – was selected by the Padres in the second round of the 2007 draft out of Arizona State University and went on to have an 11-year career in the big leagues. He also had an easy answer on how he became a left-handed hitter.
He always was one.
“I really wanted to play infield when I was just beginning Little League, and the only way that was going to happen was to learn how to throw right-handed, and one summer I did.”
While batting from the left side, as a right-handed defensive player has advantages, what has fallen in recent years are switch-hitters. In 1992, the percentage of switch hitters peaked at 24.8%, and in 2021, it dropped to 13.1%.
The main reason is that most players are better from one side of the plate, particularly the left, because they have more repetitions. For left-handers, hitting from the right side is particularly an increasingly losing proposition because of the need to get more repetitions from their weaker side and only rarely seeing left-handed pitching.
Lefty Cedric Mullins had the best season of his career when he stopped taking at-bats from the right side.
The rarer side is position players who throw left-handed but hit from the right side. From the Padres’ perspective, the most recent player to do so was Jason Lane, who began his career as a position player and later transitioned to pitching.
Jason Lane was a two-way player for the Chihuahuas. (Photo: El Paso Chihuahuas)
“I don’t know how it happened, but the main reason is eye dominance; I just saw the ball better from the right side,” said Lane in El Paso, on the reasons for which side he hit on. “I could hit from the left side, but never as well from the right.
“For most of my career, I’ve been able to drive the ball to the opposite side, but I’ve always been comfortable using the whole field. I never thought of it as something odd, just something that I did.”
The best explanation might have been by Craig Cooper. The former Notre Dame star, who is now working in the finance industry in New York, was once a left-handed throwing, right-handed-hitting first baseman. While Cooper never made it to the major leagues, the Plainview, New York native hit .361 at four years at Notre Dame with 1.018 OPS and had a very respectable five-year minor league career slash line of .293/.376/.433 before hanging them up after making it to Triple-A Portland in 2010.
Cooper had the least complicated reason for why he batted from a different side: “My [bleeping] brothers,” he laughed.
“All of them are righties, and I still remind them of how much easier my career could have been if I had hit left-handed.”
