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| Photo Credit: AP. |
NEW YORK (AP) — Joe Musgrove got an earful — and didn’t mind at all. The San Diego Padres pitcher was working on a one-hitter and about to face the Mets in the sixth inning when New York manager Buck Showalter walked out to crew chief Alfonso Marquez.
Two minutes
later, the umpire had a hand in each of the pitcher’s ears, as if a magician
about to pull out a coin.
“He’s not
going to find nothing,” Musgrove remembered thinking to himself.
Showalter
took the extraordinary step of requesting Musgrove be searched for banned
sticky substances Sunday, a move many perceived as desperate gamesmanship that
didn’t throw the pitcher off track. Musgrove completed seven innings of one-hit
ball, helping San Diego beat the Mets 6-0 in the decisive Game 3 of their NL
wild-card series Sunday night.
“I feel kind
of bad about it,” Showalter said. “He’s too good a pitcher, and they’re too
good — without getting into a lot of things, the spin rates and different
things that I’m sure you’re all aware of when you see something that jumps out
at you — I get a lot of information in the dugout that — we certainly weren’t
having much luck the way it was going, that’s for sure. ”
Musgrove, a
first-time All-Star, had a 4-0 lead and had pitched to one batter over the
minimum, allowing Pete Alonso’s leadoff single in the fifth. After Showalter
came out on the field, the umpires gathered between the mound and first.
Marquez then went to the mound, searched Musgrove’s cap and glove, then both
ears.
“I mean I
get it dude,” Musgrove said on the live television broadcast after the final
out. “They’re on their last leg. They’re desperate. They’re doing everything
they can to get me out of the game at that point.”
Fans yelled
“Cheater!” at Musgrove, a member of the 2017 Houston Astros World Series
champions that were found by Major League Baseball to have broken rules by
using a video camera to steal signs.
Musgrove
told The Associated Press this month he feels uncomfortable wearing his
championship ring and wants “one that feels earned” with his hometown Padres.
“I tend to
be a high road guy,” Padres manager Bob Melvin said. “Joe Musgrove is a man of
character. Questioning his character, to me, that’s the part I have a problem
with — and I’m here to tell everybody that Joe Musgrove is as above board as any
pitcher I know, any player I know, and unfortunately that happened to him,
because the reception that he got after that was not warranted.”
Umpires
allowed him to continue pitching, and after striking out Tomás Nido for the
second out, Musgrove made a gesture with his hand across his nose toward the
Mets dugout.
After
Brandon Nimmo’s inning-ending lineout, Musgrove glared at the Mets dugout and
third baseman Manny Machado threw up both arms in a gesture toward San Diego
fans behind the dugout on the third-base side.
MLB
“It motivated me a little bit, man. It fired
me up.” Musgrove said. “An opportunity to stick to ’em a little bit and stick
it to the crowd. I took it, and then I had to get back to work.”
Musgrove
threw the first no-hitter in Padres history, the first of a record nine
no-hitters across baseball in 2021 that helped prompt a crackdown by MLB that
June on the use of foreign sticky substances by pitchers to improve their grip.
Umpires now
routinely check pitchers’ gloves, hats and fingers for sticky stuff after
innings. Marquez, a big league umpire since 1999, said he had been asked for
only one similar spot check.
“All Buck
requested was for us to check for an illegal substance, and that’s what the
crew did,” Marquez said. “We checked him and we found nothing.”
The bizarre
inspection, which caused a 3 1/2-minute delay, lit up social media.
“I guarantee
Musgrove has Red Hot on his ears,” Milwaukee outfielder Andrew McCutchen
tweeted. “Pitchers use it as mechanism to stay locked in during games. It burns
like crazy and IDK why some guys thinks it helps them but in no way is it
`sticky.′ Buck is smart tho. Could be trying to just throw him off.”
Musgrove
allowed one hit in seven innings with five strikeouts and one walk, throwing 59
of 86 pitches for strikes.
His 28
fastballs averaged 2,662 revolutions per minute through six innings, up from a
2,559 average, and their velocity averaged 93.9 mph, 1 mph more than during the
regular season. His curve averaged 2,904, up from 2,722.
“There’s
some pretty obvious reasons why it was necessary,” Showalter said. ”I’m charged
with doing what’s best for the New York Mets. If it makes me look however it
makes me look or whatever, I’m going to do it every time and live with the
consequences.”
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