There's a range. Maybe his masking is less. Maybe his brain compensates in such ways that it makes it possible. Maybe he's not hitting the pitch, he's hitting w

There's a range. Maybe his masking is less. Maybe his brain compensates in such ways that it makes it possible. Maybe he's not hitting the pitch, he's hitting where he believes the pitch is going to be. 90mph is 132 feet per second. The distance from the pitching mound to home plate is 60 feet, 6 inches. The ball will take under half a second to travel that distance. I think about 450ms. The actual swing takes about 150ms. That gives the batter about 300ms total to identify the pitch and decide to swing. They're basically watching the pitcher and determining where to swing based on the release. Once the bat is in motion, it's up to the baseball gods. That's why batting averages are so low. Even great batters are hitting the ball only about a third of the time.