The ban had a smooth rollout Monday, with New York Mets ace Jacob deGrom notably serving as the first pitcher to be inspected for Spider Tack and other outlawed sticky stuff.
Like the first two checks, the umpiring crew’s third inspection of the 36-year-old right-hander didn’t uncover any wrongdoing.
Welcome to the new normal in Major League Baseball.
As was the case with the first two checks on Scherzer, the mandatory substance checks are meant to take place between innings or after pitching changes.
Maybe the third interruption would get him out of a rhythm in which he’d allowed only a solo home run to Bryce Harper to that point.
That Girardi was engaging in a bit of gamesmanship was the general consensus on social media and, certainly unsurprisingly, within the Nationals organization.
But unless Statcast is suddenly capable of measuring a manager’s faith level like it can, say, exit velocity and spin rate, this is ultimately a subjective call.
So, question! As you can hear and see, the ball is quite sticky.
Suffice it to say that it’s a good thing the crew determined otherwise and let Scherzer continue.
When Manfred referred to the use of sticky stuff as an “unfair competitive advantage,” he had plenty of anecdotal evidence to back him up.
But even if pitchers should have known their days of getting away with using sticky stuff were numbered, the timing of MLB’s crackdown couldn’t have been worse.
Maybe the odd pitcher will get popped for sticky stuff here and there, but it figures that most inspections will yield nothing.
For instance, pine tar or the formerly oh-so-popular mix of sunscreen and rosin.