Played smoothly to leg out of the middle of the bat (6)
I believe the answer is:
legato
'played smoothly' is the definition.
(I've seen this in another clue)
'leg out of the middle of the bat?' is the wordplay.
'out' is an anagram indicator.
'of' becomes 'o''.
'the' becomes 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects).
'middle of' means to look at the middle letters.
The central letter of 'bat' is 'a'.
'o'+'t'+'a'='ota'
'ota' is an anagram of 'ato'.
'leg'+'ato'='LEGATO'
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for legato that I've seen before include "In music, in a smooth even manner" , "Played smoothly" , "Smoothly flowing in style" , "Got ale (anag.)" , "Smoothly (mus.)" .)