Major League Baseball has itself a sticky situation and seems determined to do something about it. But like so many things in the sport, MLB is playing catchup and not getting in front of an issue.
A detailed memo released Tuesday promises "enhanced enforcement" of long-ignored prohibitions against pitchers doctoring baseballs. About time. Pitchers using all sorts of concoctions on the ball is about as open a "secret" as there is in the game.
What figures to be a heavily pro-Yankees crowd in Buffalo will see their team at another critical juncture this week against the hot-hitting Toronto Blue Jays.
In a season where spin rates have gone wild and offenses have gone silent, next Monday will mark the day that umpires will be doing spot checks at their discretion – and offending players will get 10-game suspensions.
The memo was a big topic of conversation in Sahlen Field, in part because of who was in town to meet the Toronto Blue Jays.
The New York Yankees are a big enough story. Gerrit Cole pitching in Buffalo Wednesday night is big stuff for Yankees fans in the 716. But Cole, the Yankees' $324 million man, has – fairly or unfairly – become the face of the controversy.
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If you have tickets for Thursday night's Blue Jays-Yankees game in Sahlen Field, you're going to get an added bonus.
Cole went viral last week in Minnesota when asked point-blank by Ken Davidoff of the New York Post if he had ever used Spider Tack.
It was the long pause at the start of his answer – and not the answer itself – that raised eyebrows across baseball.
"I don't know. ... I don't know how to answer that to be honest," Cole said in a several-second stammer. "There are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players, from the last generation of players to this generation of players, and I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard.
"This is important to a lot of people who love the game, including the players in this room, including fans, including teams, so if MLB wants to legislate some more stuff, that's a conversation that we can have. Because ultimately we should all be pulling in the same direction on this."
Asked prior to Tuesday's game about Cole, Yankees manager Aaron Boone stood by his man, as you would expect.
The Buffalo Bisons are going to have a former World Series MVP in their lineup when they ope…
"I think this is more looking at it as a whole, as a pitching industry," Boone said. "It's clear whatever percentage you want to put in it, there's probably a pretty large percentage of pitchers that use something that's now not going to be accepted. I'm not going to speculate on how it's going to affect different individuals."
Minnesota's Josh Donaldson had inflamed the situation, pointing out how Cole's spin rate had dropped in perhaps an effort by the pitcher to defuse suspicion of what he might be doing to the ball.
Yankees GM Brian Cashman, in town Tuesday to see his struggling team, regaled the media with some Ralph Krueger-like word salad in defense of Cole. Specifically, Cashman said he liked how Cole didn't duck the question and took a high moral ground on the subject.
Frankly, the GM came off as more of a fibber than his pitcher. Most everybody else watching felt Cole was the little kid caught by mom with his hand in the cookie jar before dinner.
"What has now evolved in the development of pitching up is obviously something completely new and different, with the evolution of spin rates and improving spin rates," Cashman said, when he finally came back to reality. "They have created an atmosphere that's clearly very difficult for the offensive forces in this game to counteract, so Major League Baseball is obviously trying to find common ground for all players involved in equal footing."
Fair enough. What Cashman said there made sense. But get ready for the revolt among pitchers. It already started, as Tampa Bay ace Tyler Glasnow was diagnosed with a flexor strain and a partial tear of an elbow ligament. He will be out at least a couple months and possibly quite a bit longer.
Glasnow said he stopped using sunscreen to help his grip and felt a pop in his arm. He said he changed his grip and held the ball tighter – and that caused his issues.
Glasnow left Monday's game vs. the Chicago White Sox after four innings. He said on a video call Tuesday that "I was sore in places I didn't even know I had muscles in" after he struck out 11 against Washington on June 8.
"I just threw 80 innings, then you tell me I can't use anything in the middle of the year," Glasnow said. "I have to change everything I've been doing the entire season. I'm telling you I truly believe that's why I got hurt."
Dodgers ace Trevor Bauer blistered MLB in a Twitter rant in response to Glasnow's comments.
"They’ve knowingly swept this under the rug for 4 years. Now they implement a knee jerk reaction to shifting public perception," Bauer wrote in part. "Hard to hear them talk about 'competitive integrity' when they have no integrity to begin with. ... All you care about is the bottom line of the business, and public perception negatively affecting it."
This will be a daily narrative to watch in the coming weeks. This season has felt too much like 1968, when pitchers dominated to the point that MLB lowered the height of the mound.
There was no waiting until the offseason this time. If offenses start to suddenly rebound, it won't be just because the weather got warmer.
