New York Mets co-ace Max Scherzer is presently serving a 10-game suspension for the use of a banned grip-enhancing substance during his most recent start against the Dodgers. During that start, Scherzer had repeated interactions with umpire Phil Cuzzi about the tackiness of his pitching hand, and Scherzer insisted time and again that it was nothing more than allowable combination of rosin and sweat on his hands.
After the game, however, crew chief Dan Bellino had this to say:
"This was the stickiest [a hand] has been since I've been inspecting hands, which goes back three seasons. It was so sticky that when we touched his hand, our fingers were sticking to his hand."
So what gives? If Scherzer were using merely sweat and rosin, then how did such a such a sticky mixture result? Cuzzi twice told Scherzer to wash his hands to remove or lessen the tackiness, and Scherzer says he did that -- using alcohol, which, again according to Scherzer, is a substance that "for a little bit there can be a little sticky in rosin-ing."
And that's the real issue. Speaking of which, former big-league pitcher and current analyst David Cone on Sunday night demonstrated what happens when you combine the usual sweat-and-rosin amalgam with alcohol, as Scherzer did:
Suffice it to say, that amounts to "sticky stuff."
Conveniently enough, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred made an appearance at an Associated Press Sports Editors event on event and was asked about the Scherzer situation in particular and the "sticky stuff" topic in general. Here's what he said, via our Adi Joseph:
"Players have been clearly told that combining rosin with another substance is not allowed. There are a variety -- sunscreen, alcohol, whatever. Rosin that's out the bag, that's on the mound, you can get that off your hand without alcohol. That's a red herring. I want to commend the umpires who made multiple attempts to de-escalate this. ... I don't think there's any confusion about combining stuff with rosin."
On the one hand, Scherzer wasn't exactly trying to conceal his use of alcohol to wash his hands, as he referenced it multiple times during the post-game media scrum. On the other, possibly more nefarious hand, Scherzer's on-field pleas of "sweat and rosin" weren't painting the full picture. As Cone's science project and Manfred's comments suggest, it's the act of washing his hands with alcohol that turned the routine into the controversial.
