Dave Martinez hesitated before heading down the path. But after watching Austin Voth suffer a broken nose when he was hit in the face with an errant pitch Sunday afternoon, the Washington Nationals manager decided it was time to speak up.
With strikeouts up and batting averages down, Martinez knows MLB is weighing a crackdown on the flagrant use of foreign substances — the pine tar, rosin and sunscreen that pitchers are routinely using to dominate today’s hitters. But the Nationals manager is worried that forcing pitchers to stick strictly to the rulebook will lead to more batters getting hit — like Voth.