First Ejection in MLB's War on Foreign Substances

Ten-year veteran pitcher Hector Santiago of the Seattle Mariners became the first victim of MLB's renewed enforcement crackdown on pitching foreign substances.  The umpiring crew checked Santiago's glove, hat, and belt in the 5th inning of their game against the White Sox (as is customary - starters are being checked minimum twice a game under the "new" rule) and discovered what they deemed to be an excessively sticky substance on the inside of his glove, and he was promptly ejected.  Santiago and the team contends that the substance is just a mixture of rosen (which is still allowed) and sweat, which does make a sticky paste when enough sweat is mixed in, but the umpire's main contention was the quantity and that it is on the glove hand which is not allowed.  The glove was subsequently handled like evidence in a crime scene, being gently touched and placed in a white garbage bag, where it will be sent to the MLB's "CSI" office or whatever investigates this sort of thing, to test what the substance truly is.  If it is determined to be anything more than rosen and sweat, Santiago will receive a 10-game suspension to be served immediately (with pay) and the Mariners will be down one man on the roster during that time.

I've been hesitant to write about this topic until we have seen how this plays out a little bit as I have a lot of differing opinions on it.  I can certainly understand both sides of the issue.  From the pitchers' perspective, the balls are constantly being manipulated and changed - which has been well documented the last few seasons - and for the most part, most of them are just trying to get a grip on the baseball.  In fact, because a baseball is naturally slippery out of the box, for years baseballs have been getting "pre-rubbed" with a special mud from the Carolinas.  Any baseball that is not rubbed or manually manipulated in some way to a pitcher's liking just becomes a speeding projectile death wish in today's game of high velocity, where under 95 mph is now considered "slow."  A mix of sunblock and rosen has been the go-to substance of choice for pitchers for many decades, and umpires and the league have always turned a blind eye to it until now.  Even many hitters have gone on record saying that pitchers should be allowed to use any substance they want that allows them to grip better and not have a baseball slip out of their hand towards their head - within reason.  And it's this "within reason" caveat that brings in the league's perspective.  Their stance is that the outliers that are not only looking to get a grip, but to increase spin rate - the stat du jour of pitching savants today - and thus the break on a pitch, or velocity of a 4-seam fastball, is getting out of control.  There have been grumblings that super glue-type substances have infiltrated the game and are now giving a bad name to those just looking to grip the ball better, so the league has no choice but to crack down on everything until this is studied further.  I heard a great comparison a few weeks ago, which likened sunblock and rosen to marijuana (not great for you, and technically illegal, but not harming anyone and pretty low level) and likening Spider-Tack/super glue to heroin.

I understand that the league's hands are tied, and that the playing field needs to be leveled, but my issue with this is primarily that this has happened so quickly and half-assed in the middle of a season, and the optics on it are that it is in response to the drastically below-average offensive numbers around the league.  Tyler Glasnow gave the best honest interview on this subject after he hurt his elbow following his 2nd start going "cold turkey" with no substances.  Whether or not that caused the injury is debatable, but his point about pitchers being creatures of habit and doing things a certain way their entire careers and told to stop on a dime is unrealistic.  MLB should have done their due diligence on this to come up with an acceptable substance to all parties, and started enforcement in the off-season to give everybody a spring training to adjust, instead of putting this rule in place haphazardly.  I hope that will still be the case in the next CBA this off-season.

STANDINGS AND UPCOMING SERIES AS OF 6/28/21:

Brewers 45-33 +3.0; 3 v. Cubs, 4 @ Pirates

Twins 33-43, -11.5; 4 @ White Sox, 3 @ Royals

2021 GAMES ATTENDED:

Erik - 0

Peter - 5