We’ve talked (a lot, maybe) about lifting the ball more here, and so far the discussion has revolved around hands, legs, and intent — the mechanics of the swing, more or less. There’s another way to lift the ball better, though, one that hasn’t been addressed here: swinging at better pitches. That’s what Kevin Pillar has focused on, and his story offers another look into the effort to hit the ball over the shift.

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Over the last three years, Max Scherzer has kicked it up a notch, progressing from simply a very good pitcher to one of the best three in the major leagues. He attributes some of that success to an improved curveball, a pitch that has served to complement his already devastating slider. Perhaps it’s because of his curveball’s effectiveness that he’s not afraid to continue tinkering. Perhaps the introduction of a new, third breaking pitch will lead to another leap forward, if that’s even possible.

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I was talking to Nationals reliever Blake Treinen the other day and the topic of command came up. I had to ask what happened earlier this year. He graciously addressed the early-season issues that cost him the closer’s role, and it opened my eyes to how the ninth might be different than the eighth — at least when it comes to typical reliever usage and the way batters act — particularly for a guy like Treinen. Hint: the difference has nothing to do with the pitcher’s demeanor.

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After talking recently with Daniel Murphy about launch angles and the like, I walked over to one of my brethren in hair Anthony Rendon and asked for some of his time. “I’m probably the worst person to talk to about this,” said the Nationals third baseman, already laughing. “Worst person ever!” added his next door neighbor Trea Turner. “I change strictly off of feel. Trying to talk to me about this launch-angle stuff…” Rendon said, gesturing with a wave towards Murphy. “I’m going off feel.”

That’s fine. For hitters, sometimes the best means to changing mechanically is simply to change the intention and focus on a different part of the field, like Yonder Alonso did. Very specific cues and jargon-laden research? Those are for the heady few.

But Rendon is a little different for another reason. While other batters are swinging for the fences and changing their approach radically, Rendon has achieved more power this year by adjusting in a very subtle way that allows him to make more of his level swing.

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Even though the existence of this piece is based on opinions relayed to me by multiple players, none of those players’ actual name appear within it. Why? Because nobody wants to go on record about the strike zone. They do have feelings about that zone, though. Especially lefties. And there’s evidence that the lefty strike zone is changing.

One lefty slugger was recently telling me about his approach and then made sure that we were off the record to throw in an aside: “… because they’re calling the lefty zone more true on the inside these days.” A catcher was adamant that he’d heard from umpire crew chiefs that there was an added emphasis on those pitches in to lefties. Another catcher echoed the sentiment and added that umpires were looking harder at the bottom of the zone. One lefty hitter called it garbage. A third catcher just shook his head at the whole thing.

Though none of these players would put their name to the complaint — fair, since they have to interact with the umpires going forward and wouldn’t want to poison that conversation and put a bullseye on their backs — there was enough smoke here to investigate the situation for fire.

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“What’s going on with the cutter and the slider?” I asked Jeff Samardzija the other day in the clubhouse. “I’m turning less,” said the Giants’ big right-hander. I started laughing, thinking he was talking about turning and watching the ball leave the yard. He arched an eyebrow, and didn’t follow suit. I had to explain myself. Now he was the one laughing. “No, no, that was last year. That’s why I started throwing the curveball,” he said. The good news is that turning less in one way has allowed him to turn less in another. The other good news is, Samardzija isn’t currently angry with me.

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When you look up and see that the Athletics are in the midst of a two-game mid-week series against the Marlins in late May, you might suspect that the major-league baseball schedule is simply an exercise in randomness. At this point in the campaign, that’s actually sort of the case. The combination of interleague play and the random vagaries of an early-season schedule conspire to mean that your favorite team hasn’t had the same schedule as your least favorite team. Let’s try to put a number on that disparity.

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