Since Major League Baseball began cracking down on sticky substances, three of the seven pitchers that have been ejection have been New York Mets.
Star closer Edwin Diaz became the latest victim of MLB’s witch hunt, carried out by third-base umpire Vic Carapazza during the Mets’ 5-2 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Wrigley Field on Sunday night. Entering the game in the ninth to close out the win, Diaz was stopped and interrogated by Carapazza, who tossed him from the game after deeming his hand was too sticky.
“I use the same thing, always,” Diaz said. “I rub rosin, sweat and I put my hand in the dirt a little bit so I can have some grip on the ball… I was really surprised because I didn’t have anything on my hand, glove, or belt. They always check everything.”
Both Diaz and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza relayed that Carapazza accused the hurler of having too much of that combination of sweat, rosin, and dirt. Carapazza, however, basically called Mendoza and Diaz liars.
“It definitely wasn’t rosin and sweat,” Carapazza told a pool reporter after the game. “We’ve checked thousands of these. I know what that feeling is. This was very sticky.”
Diaz now faces a 10-game suspension and the Mets nearly two weeks without their star closer while potentially losing another reliever in Drew Smith, who was thrown into the game after the ejection and appeared to suffer an injury during the ninth inning, due to a game of “he said, she said.”
This is how MLB umpiring has handled the sticky-stuff crackdown — subjective calls with little accountability and zero rhyme or reason.
Some pitchers have been run from the game before throwing a single pitch, likely because the umpire believes it is a foreign substance and not just rosin. Others have been given the opportunity to wash their hands even if their hands are stickier than normal.
It might have something to do with the umpiring crew on hand. It might have something to do with the teams involved. At this point, it is more than an odd coincidence that 43% of all pitcher ejections for sticky stuff have been Mets.
In reality, though, checks are sporadic and the threshold for what is or is not too sticky varies on who is presiding over the game. When an umpire does toss a player, he is not held accountable and then gets to hide behind MLB, which has always blindly sided with its officials.
It is time to make the subjective objective and fix what has become a game of pointing fingers.
