QUEENS, NY — New York Mets closer Edwin Diaz will not appeal Major League Baseball’s decision to suspend him 10 games after it was deemed that he violated the league’s foreign substance policy during Sunday night’s victory over the Chicago Cubs.
“We want to move on from it,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said of Diaz and the team’s decision. “We don’t want this cloud to be hanging over the team for too long. We decided what was best. We talked to him and we thought it was best to move forward and get it over with.”
The Mets will now be without their star closer until July 6 when the team is in Pittsburgh, meaning he will miss the entirety of this week’s Subway Series against the Yankees and ensuing matchups against the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals.
Mendoza and the Mets will go closer by committee, which they did when Diaz missed 16 games between May and June due to a shoulder impingement.
“We’ll continue to mix and match,” Mendoza said. “We have to get through to the ninth with a lead and then I’ll have the decision to make… I’ll make adjustments as the game goes on… I feel comfortable with the guys that we have. We’ve been through it and we’ll get through it again.”
Diaz was tossed from Sunday night’s game by third-base umpire Vic Carapazza after a routine hand and glove check before the star right-hander even took the mound to warm up.
Both Diaz and Mendoza maintained that it was a mixture of sweat, rosin, and dirt, which remained legal after MLB cracked down on the use of sticky substances, and that Carapazza told them that it was simply too much.
Carapazza’s tune, however, changed after the game when speaking to a pool reporter.
“It definitely wasn’t rosin and sweat,” Carapazza he said. “We’ve checked thousands of these. I know what that feeling is. This was very sticky.”
While the stories do not corroborate, thus opening a clear path to appeal, the Mets chose not to despite displaying unwavering support for Diaz.
“I got his back. I truly believe what he was telling us,” Mendoza said. “Edwin said it was rosin and sweat. The one thing that he did say was that it was humid so he had to go to it a lot more than earlier in the year when it was cold. Maybe that had something to do with it. I believe my player and I’ll stand by it.”
