“A chance — that’s the biggest thing, an extended chance,” that’s all Jesse Chavez wanted. For a pitcher who was never once on any team’s top 20 prospect list, a pitcher who has taken seven years and five organizations to pick up his first 300 innings, a pitcher who was an unknown until this year — an extended chance was a lifeline. The 30-year-old has finally gotten that now with Oakland, and he’s grateful. But the A’s might also have given him some freedom that has allowed him to shine. His pitches, and their grips, can help tell the story.

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Justin Morneau is off to a great start this year; of course, this is also his first year playing for the Rockies. Most people enjoy playing half their games in a park that greatly inflates offense like Coors Field. Even when you look at a park-adjusted metric such as wRC+, though, you’ll notice that his production on the road has been equal to that of his production in Colorado. How did hitting in Coors Field make him a better hitter on the road?

Morneau has a nice .326/.357/.550 slash line at home. Once you correct for his generous home park, that’s 21 percent better than league average. His .279/.319/.488 road average doesn’t look that great, but when compared to the rest of the National League, it’s just as valuable as his home slash line (120 wRC+). His home park still has something to do with that road work, though.

It might be more that Coors Field has freed him of the shackles that Target Field in Minnesota put on him. “I think I let the park play into my approach a little bit too much the last couple of years,” Morneau admitted before a game with the Giants in mid-June. “I thought I had avoided it, but I wasn’t as comfortable using the whole field… most good hitters use the whole field.”

He’s right about good hitters, but we’ll add a caveat — using the whole field with power is important. In order to remove the slap hitters like Adeiny Hechavarria and Jarrod Dyson from the top of the list, we’ll make league-average power a prerequisite for making this list of spray hitters. Let’s sort the list by the percentage of outfield balls in play that go to the center or opposite fields. The league averages a .145 Isolated Slugging Percentage (slugging minus batting average), so let’s cut the list off there. Let’s go to 21 hitters — you’ll see why. Here are your powerful spray hitters who play regularly.

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If you’ve recently tried to get your first job, you may know something about the furious catch-22 involved. How are you supposed to get experience if you need experience to get it? There’s a little of that in getting your first major league job. Go out there kid, don’t worry about those major league pitchers, and the crowd, just be comfortable. We’ll talk about whether or not you start tomorrow, tomorrow.

Sounds like a recipe for pressing. And if you talk to Corey Dickerson and Charlie Blackmon, the remedy is simple: a more defined role. Which comes after success, mostly. Round and round we go.

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Corey Kluber gave us Kluberization: the ditching of a bad four-seam for a better two-seamer. Dallas Keuchel gave us The Keuchel Excercise: the turfing of a bad curve for a better slider. Is Jake Arrieta following the Jesse Chavez Legacy? It certainly looks like he’s in the process of a major change in his pitching mix, and it might be what allows him to finally make good on all the promise that he’s shown to date. It should at least help him improve his command.

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After a slow start to the season, the Nationals are finally playing like one of the best teams in baseball. While Stephen Strasburg and Bryce Harper generate most of the headlines, however, it’s their low-profile first baseman who is one of the driving forces behind their surge. And when you begin to talk to Adam LaRoche, he helps you understand that hitting is as complicated as it is simple.

Part of LaRoche’s comeback is as basic as a change in medication. Last year, the slugger tried an extended release medication for his ADHD, and the results were nothing short of disastrous. “All of them are really appetite suppressers, and so I got to the point where I had no appetite,” LaRoche said before a game with the Giants this June. “Heat and humidity played a role — sweating every day, losing a bunch of weight — and I got down to college weight.” LaRoche just wasn’t healthy.

That can help explain the return in his power stroke, perhaps. But despite great results, he’s not really hitting the ball much further — his batted ball distance on homers and flies is actually down three feet from last year. It’s still top 100 in the league, but he hasn’t added punch on those balls.

Part of what LaRoche is doing that is so great is that he’s making contact like he never has before. He’s posting a career-best strikeout rate (17.1%, career 22%), and it’s backed by the best swinging-strike rate of his career (6.9%, compared to his career mark of 9.7%). That one stumped the hitter — “That… is really unexplainable,” he said as he tugged at his beard.

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Two decades ago, Tim Hudson was finishing up his first season at Chattahoochee Valley Community College. He was a short righty with a sinker, a slurve and small hands. More than 3,000 innings later, that sinker’s still going — but the rest of Hudson’s arsenal’s evolved. And maybe the story of that change can tell us a little bit about sinkerballers, in general.

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