In wake of Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Will Smith being ejected from Thursday’s matchup between the Brewers and the Atlanta Braves for using a foreign substance, MLB writer for ESPN Buster Olney spoke on Friday’s edition of “Mike and Mike” on ESPN2 about what MLB needs to do solve the dilemma of pitchers using substances such as pine tar, vaseline or sunscreen for a better grip. In 2014, New York Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was suspended 10 games for having a large amount of pine tar “hidden” on his neck.
Olney offered that because almost every pitcher in the league does it, that MLB should take a look at it so that they can all agree on one substance to regulate it for the league.
“Probably, literally not every pitcher does it, but I’ll turn on a game and a lot of pitchers if you look at their glove hand they have a shiny substance on their forearm or you’re watching a game and a pitcher will continually dab at a spot on his cap which is really dark. most of the time on the forearm it is sunscreen mixed with rosin or on the cap it is often pine tar.”
“In my mind, Major League Baseball should defer the punishment on Will Smith and say, ‘You know what, let’s take a look at this issue and see if we come up with some kind of substance we can all agree upon.'”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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