Tag: Sticky substances

Dodgers pitcher Michael Grove had a rough inning right after the umpires made him change his pants

The umps let him stay in the game …

There is nothing quite like the paranoia you see from baseball teams at the slightest suspicion of a pitcher using illegal substances. It apparently can lead to a clothing change.

During Monday night’s game between the Dodgers and Blue Jays, Los Angeles starter Michael Grove was cruising through four innings. In those innings, he had allowed just four hits, no runs and racked up six strikeouts. It had all the makings of a deep outing, but the Blue Jays noticed something was up with Grove’s right pant leg.

There was a noticeable dark spot around the thigh, and Grove was seen going to that leg with his throwing hard between pitches.

That raised some obvious alarms about sticky substances, and the Blue Jays evidently voiced those concerns to Jeff Nelson and the umpiring crew. When Grove returned to the mound in the fifth inning, the dark spot on the pants was gone. It was clear: Grove had changed his pants between innings.

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Now, the umpires did their customary check for sticky substances on Grove, and if they found anything out of the ordinary, Grove should have been ejected. But we’ve seen umpires circumvent those rules and give pitchers an opportunity to wash their hands instead of an automatic ejection as required. Grove said that the umpires told him the request to have his pants checked came from the Blue Jays dugout.

Whether it was gamesmanship from the Blue Jays or a genuine concern, Grove was clearly not as sharp in the fifth inning. He gave up two runs and four hits with the new pants in the fifth inning before getting pulled from the game.

Fans understandably had thoughts on the whole ordeal, including more inconsistency with how umpires enforce the rules on sticky substances.

Twins pitcher Bailey Ober was allowed to stay in game despite evidently getting caught with sticky substances

Umpires are just making up rules now.

MLB’s crackdown on pitchers using sticky substances is supposed to be simple. Pitchers are checked randomly throughout the game, and if they are caught with sticky substances, they’re supposed to get ejected right there on the spot.

Umpires haven’t exactly been enforcing the rule as designed, though. We saw that on Thursday.

Twins pitcher Bailey Ober was dealing through three innings against the Tampa Bay Rays. He was so dominant, in fact, that he struck out six consecutive batters in the second and third innings. But before the fourth inning, umpire C.B. Bucknor didn’t seem satisfied with what he found during a substance check.

Again, MLB rules call for the pitcher to get ejected and serve a 10-game suspension for sticky substances. But for whatever reason, Ober was given the opportunity to wash his hands and continue in the game. It’s unclear why umpires are allowing this second chance unless they’re simply trying to avoid the inevitable confrontation that comes with ejecting a pitcher. If the substance doesn’t reach an ejection-worthy level, then the pitcher should be allowed to go to the mound. There shouldn’t be a middle ground.

You may remember that Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was furious back in April when Yankees pitcher Domingo Germán was given a similar exception. But he didn’t seem to have an issue with Ober being allowed to wash his hands there.

When Ober returned to the game, he allowed three runs in that fourth inning. While his spin rate was unchanged from the earlier innings, there was a decent drop in velocity. His fastball topped off at 91.6 mph after the substance check and exceeded 93 mph before it.

Fans still had plenty of thoughts about that scene between innings.

MLB fans crushed the Yankees after Domingo German got ejected for sticky substances

The Yankees aren’t even subtle.

The New York Yankees went into the second game of their series with the Blue Jays already dealing with cheating allegations about Aaron Judge’s side eye before a home run. So you’d think that the Yankees players wouldn’t want to do anything to attract more unwelcome attention.

Yankees pitcher Domingo German missed that memo.

Last month, Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was livid (and ultimately ejected) when crew chief James Hoye allowed German to remain in the game after the pitcher failed a test for sticky substances. It was an inexcusable move by Hoye and his crew. Well, on Tuesday, Hoye was working behind home plate for the game in Toronto. This time, Hoye was not lenient with the Yankees starter.

After the third inning, the umpires checked German’s hands and determined that his hands were too sticky. He was ejected and will face a mandatory 10-game suspension.

Footage from the dugout would show that German — who was perfect in his three innings — clearly had some substance on his pant leg. It definitely was not rosin and sweat — let’s just say that.

The Yankees were adamant that they did nothing wrong during Monday’s game, which had Judge calling out the Blue Jays broadcast. But German didn’t do them any favors by evidently cheating with an intense microscope on the Yankees.

Fans — Twins fans, especially — weren’t kind to the Yankees after Tuesday’s ejection.

An excellent video provided a word-for-word breakdown of Max Scherzer’s argument with the umpires

“I promise you on my (expletive) life!”

New York Mets pitcher Max Scherzer was ejected in the third inning of Wednesday’s game against the Los Angeles Dodgers because, according to umpires Phil Cuzzi and Dan Bellino, his hands were way too sticky.

Scherzer was adamant he didn’t break any rules about sticky substances and claimed after the game that all he had on his hands was rosin and sweat. It turned out he made a similar argument to the umpires on the field before he was ultimately ejected.

As the argument was taking place, MLB fans and lip readers could see that Scherzer was repeatedly telling the umps that he only had rosin on his hands. And in a great breakdown video from Jomboy Media, we got an even closer look at the lively discussion. (Warning: NSFW language in the video)

Scherzer kept saying it was “rosin and sweat” over and over. He even took it to a new level when he said, “It’s rosin and sweat. I promise you on my (expletive) life. That is literally rosin.”

Now, the umpires didn’t buy the explanation. They said after the game that the stickiness level was so extreme that Scherzer deserved an ejection and that the stickiness got worse upon the second check.

Of course, the alcohol used to wash Scherzer’s hands could have played a role. But what a strange scene all the way around. Those breakdown videos never get old, though.

Max Scherzer jokingly told the umpires to check Bryce Harper’s hair for sticky substances

All of the product.

The first few days of Major League Baseball’s enhanced checks for sticky substances haven’t exactly gone smoothly. We’ve already seen pitchers meet the checks with frustration. We’ve seen Sergio Romo drop his pants. And the checks almost sparked a full-out fight.

And while most of that drama took place in Tuesday night’s Nationals-Phillies game, both teams were ready to joke about it all for Wednesday’s matinee game.

Just look at how Max Scherzer was able to laugh off the sticky-substance checks a day later.

As umpires were preparing to check Nationals pitcher Erick Fedde for sticky stuff, Scherzer and Ryan Zimmerman could be seen yelling from the dugout to have the umpires check Bryce Harper’s hair.

Of course it was all a joke, but the umps did *actually* check Scherzer’s hair on Tuesday.

Harper, who does use a ton of hair product, had a good laugh over the heckling from his former teammates. But no worries, Harper didn’t have to get inspected.

Still, the checks have been going on for all of two days and everyone is treating it like a joke (because it sort of is). MLB had to have seen that coming.

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