Amidst this season’s decline in offense and this past offseason’s lawsuit against the Los Angeles Angels, the use of foreign substances on the mound by pitchers has become a major topic of discussion in the baseball world. Early in the season, the league tagged some balls used by Trevor Bauer as “suspicious,” and late last month, former Yankees reliever Giovanny Gallegos was forced to change his hat mid-game by the umpiring crew. Finally, this week, Minnesota’s Josh Donaldson called out Gerrit Cole for a decline in spin rate as evidence that pitchers are abandoning the practice out of fear.
MLB has hardly proved that it will handle the foreign-substance controversy in good faith
