Yankees’ Michael Pineda ejected from loss to Red Sox after pine tar discovered on neck
Home plate umpire Gerry Davis came out to the mound at Red Sox manager John Farrell’s request and checked Pineda’s uniform. Davis ran his finger over the brown spot on Pineda’s neck and immediately ejected him.
+New York Daily News
+New York Yankees starter Michael Pineda appears to be bad at cheating. Pine tar is clearly visible on his neck here. When discovered by umpires in the second inning, he is ejected.
BOSTON – After giving up two runs in the first inning Wednesday night, Michael Pineda returned to the Fenway mound for the second frame with brown goop slathered on the right side of his neck, setting in motion a series of events that likely will push the Yankees’ 5-1 loss to the +Boston Red Sox into Rivalry lore.
Pineda, now a “man of (foreign) substance” two times over, was ejected after plate umpire Gerry Davis dabbed his finger in the glistening stuff on Pineda’s neck at the request of Sox manager John Farrell. Pineda likely faces a suspension that could be as long as eight or 10 games, though +MLB officials won’t decide on the penalty until they’ve digested the umpires’ report.
And Pineda’s not the only one who could be in trouble. Yankee manager Joe Girardi moved an unmanned +ESPN camera after it turned to capture video of a dejected Pineda walking down the dugout tunnel toward the clubhouse with an athletic trainer and pitching coach Larry Rothschild. Girardi held the camera away, all of it caught by another camera angle. That could be subject to discipline, too.
Beyond the likely penalties, this storyline could keep reverberating through Rivalry games this season – now that the Red Sox have checked a Yankee pitcher, do Girardi and Co. retaliate by asking umps to look at any suspicious blotch on a Boston pitcher, just for the potential annoyance factor? Both Jon Lester and Clay Buchholz have been suspected in the past.
In the first inning with catcher Brian McCann (l.) Pineda appears to have a clean neck, but in inning two, the substance appears just behind the right ear.
The whole grand theater is a sequel of sorts to what happened at the Stadium April 10. That cold night, Pineda beat Boston but was spotted with similar brown goo on the palm of his right hand. The Red Sox did not protest, but Farrell and several his players suggested Pineda should be less obvious if he was going to use something to improve his grip on the ball.
Pineda was not disciplined for the first offense, but Joe Torre, MLB’s VP of baseball operations, talked to Yankee GM Brian Cashman about the matter. Pineda claimed it was dirt on his palm.
Though it’s technically against baseball rules, pitchers generally use something to help them get a grip on the ball on cold nights – it was 53 degrees at first pitch at Fenway, with winds gusting at 24 miles per hour – and nobody says anything because they don’t want their own pitchers checked, too. Hitters say they’re happy that pitchers actually know where their 90-plus mph pitchers are headed.
Before Wednesday night’s game, Farrell said he expected “if it’s used, it’s more discreet than the last time.”
It wasn’t. It was just in a different place.
Farrell likely asked Davis to examine Pineda because it was the second time television cameras easily spotted Pineda using something. With Grady Sizemore batting with a 1-and-2 count and two out in the second, Davis came out to the mound and checked Pineda’s uniform and the ball, felt the brown substance and ejected the pitcher.
Pineda, who entered the game with a 1.00 ERA, had been wildly successful in his first three starts, a bright rotation surprise. Pitching with a clean neck in the first inning, though, the Red Sox scored two runs off him, a scoring burst that started with Sizemore’s leadoff triple. In his abbreviated outing, Pineda (2-2) allowed four hits and two runs in 1.2 innings.
It’s worth wondering how the Yankees let Pineda go to the mound with a foreign substance so apparent on his neck. And why would he do it again after being caught last time? Couldn’t he and the Yanks have found a better hiding place? Maybe Girardi and his coaches didn’t know he was using it Wednesday night.
A foreign-substance free John Lackey dominates the Yankees over eight innings.
They do now. And now they’ll have to figure out how to deal with the fallout, as well as the potential rotation problems a suspension for Pineda will cause. They are already down a starter with Ivan Nova on the disabled and Pineda could be banned for two starts, meaning they’ll be using their seventh starter of the season.
There is precedent for suspensions as long as eight or 10 games – In 2012, +Tampa Bay Rays’ Joel Peralta was slapped with an eight-game suspension for having pine tar on his glove. The +Los Angeles Angels’ Brendan Donnelly was hit with a 10-game ban in 2005 for having a foreign substance on his glove and the +St. Louis Cardinals’ Julian Tavarez was suspended for 10 games in 2004 for doctoring baseballs.
Pineda will surely face a suspension one way or another. Joel Peralta got 8 games in 2012.
— Mark Feinsand (@FeinsandNYDN) April 24, 2014
How long will Pineda get?
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baseball/yankees/pine-tossed-yankees-pineda-ejected-red-sox-game-pine-tar-neck-article-1.1766894#ixzz2zljzKvee
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