“It was just a different grip that he showed me and it really ... a major leaguer add a new pitch at midseason, especially a split-finger fastball. “That one’s special,” Hedges said.

Cal Quantrill is not reinventing himself as a starting pitcher, but he hopes his new split-finger ... but with a grip where the baseball is wedged between the index and middle fingers.

In the case of the split-finger pitch, it is taking something old and making it new again. No less than five Dodgers pitchers are using a splitter right now, and it will be six when Shohei Ohtani ...