Sticking it to the Dodgers
Max Scherzer faces possible 10-game suspension
Good Morning,
Winning is the best medicine, right?
Let’s hope so! The Mets won for the sixth time in seven games, taking two of three from the Dodgers in Los Angeles on a day that saw Max Scherzer ejected, presented troubling news on Carlos Carrasco and added Starling Marte to the list of injured players.
The Amazins keep chugging along, hopping a flight on Wednesday night to San Francisco for a four-game set against a bunch of familiar faces, beginning tonight.
With Atlanta finally losing a game, New York drew back within two games of them in the division. I will get you ready for the next series and catch you up on all of the Scherzer news—we have plenty to talk about there.
But first, let’s discuss yesterday’s win and review some injury updates.
🥩 EARNING HIS KEEP: Jimmy Yacabonis earned a steak dinner from Mr. Scherzer after entering the game unprepared in the fourth and guiding his team into the sixth with a 2-1 lead, good enough to hand an effective Noah Syndergaard a loss against his former team. The tall right-hander from Elizabeth, New Jersey is now 2–0 in his first two appearances with the Mets.
🤩 MVP: The day really belonged to Brandon Nimmo. He joined Keith Hernandez, Mike Piazza and Rusty Staub as the fourth Met to record multiple five-hit games in franchise history. His two-run homer in the fifth giving the Mets a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
“It was a really cool day,” Nimmo said. “I was glad I was able to help out, help the team win, glad to be able to hit that home run there, give us the lead, kind of switch the momentum a little bit. Just a pretty cool day that I’m trying to soak in.”
Nimmo’s unrelenting smile shouldn’t be lost on people. If he doesn’t make an amazing catch last Sunday, the Mets lose to the A’s. Maybe the same is true on a similar play earlier this week. And the Mets definitely would have had trouble winning on Wednesday without his momentum-shifting homer and five hits. On a day when everything was tilted in the wrong direction — from Scherzer to Carrasco to Marte — somehow Mets fans went to bed feeling pretty good. That’s what winning does. That’s what Brandon Nimmo has done. He’s been the MVP of the young season. His 1.3 fWAR is tied with Ronald Acuña Jr. as second most in baseball behind Matt Chapman.
📍 FINDING HIS WAY: Before Scherzer got into the rosin craziness, he struggled to command his pitches in the first inning, leading to a bases loaded situation with one out. He buckled down to retire the next two batters and was starting to get into rhythm before he was tossed. Still, we should not be completely distracted by the fact this was another start he wasn’t his normal start-to-finish, lights-out self. If his hand was as sticky as the umpires posit, one could argue Scherzer is pushing the limits of the rules to make up for some lost ability. That said, this is also what ultra competitors do. They keenly identify the boundaries and push up against them. He has done the same with the pitch clock.
🤕 WAITING GAME: Carlos Carrasco has a small bone chip in his right elbow that has caused inflammation and discomfort. He received an injection on Wednesday that they hope will allow him to continue pitching through the pain in due time. However, if that doesn’t work, surgery is an option. The veteran right-hander had surgery in October 2021 to remove bone fragments from the same elbow.
🏥 PAIN IN THE NECK: As if that wasn’t enough, Starling Marte left yesterday’s game with “neck stiffness.” It’s unclear how serious the injury is. He will be evaluated again later today.
🍎 ROSTER NEWS: As expected, Tommy Hunter was activated from the IL on Wednesday. He replaced Denyi Reyes, who was optioned to Syracuse.
By now, you have been in the chat, watched SNY, scrolled through Twitter, read the articles, you know what happened with Max Scherzer. I will summarize it again in a bit so you have all the information in one place. But first, I want to talk about the potential implications.
🔹 Will Scherzer be suspended?
While a debate will continue over whether Scherzer should have been ejected from Wednesday’s game, one thing that is not up for dispute is that he was ejected for stickiness, not for arguing with the umpires. This is key because being ejected for using a foreign substance leads to an immediate 10-game suspension during which the Mets can’t replace his spot on the roster.
Scherzer has the right to appeal, and after swearing on his kids that he was only using “rosin and water,” it’s hard to imagine he wouldn’t go down without a fight. Not to mention, Scherzer took a prominent role in the Player’s Union during the lockout. If anything, he will use this situation as an opportunity to push back against the rule changes mandated by league.
The problem is an appeal takes time. And since Scherzer isn’t an everyday pitcher, it’s not like the Mets can benefit by having him play a few extra games during the appeal process. If he delays the 10-game suspension for a couple of days, it essentially means the Mets will be without him even longer, overlapping with up to two starts if they don’t take advantage of an off day to skip a slot in the rotation.
Héctor Santiago was suspended 10 games after losing an appeal in 2021. His defense was essentially copied and pasted by Scherzer. “It’s just sweat and rosin,” Santiago said at the time. “They’re going to inspect it, do all the science stuff behind it and it’s going to end up sweat and rosin.”
🔹 Who would replace Scherzer in the rotation?
The timing of this couldn’t be worse. Shortly after Scherzer was ejected, official word broke that Carlos Carrasco has a small bone chip in his right elbow. Without Carrasco and with Justin Verlander still 10-14 days away from making his debut, the Mets would have to get creative to find a temporary replacement for Scherzer.
José Butto cannot be called back up until May 2 after being optioned only a few days ago, unless he replaces an injured player.
That leaves Kodai Senga, David Peterson and Tylor Megill as the remaining healthy and available starters. Joey Lucchesi will likely get the call to pitch this weekend in place of Carrasco. After that, the Amazins might have to sneak in a bullpen-game start or two to bridge the gap. They really don’t have any other 40-man options right now. Dylan Bundy looked awful in his Triple-A debut and would need to be added to the 40-man.
🔹 Can you summarize what happened?
If you somehow missed what happened with Mr. Scherzer yesterday, here are the key points:
▪️ After the second inning, Scherzer was asked to wash his hands (using alcohol) because first base umpire Phil Cuzzi felt his pitching hand was “slightly sticky, a little tacky, and it was dark in color.”
▪️ Complying with the request, Scherzer washed his hands, but was checked again before the third inning and told the pocket of his glove felt sticky. Cuzzi gave Scherzer the benefit of the doubt and told him he could continue to pitch as long as he got a new glove, which Scherzer did.
▪️ After retiring the side in order in the third, Scherzer says he washed his hands again with alcohol in front of an MLB official. He then reapplied rosin and sweat, calling it “standard operating procedures” before planning to return to the mound in the fourth. He knew he would be checked again, telling reporters after the game, “I’d have to be an absolute idiot to try to do anything when I’m coming back out for the fourth.”
▪️ Sure enough, Scherzer was checked again before pitching the fourth and that’s when he was ejected. Crew Chief Dan Bellino described the process to a pool reporter, via The Athletic:
“That’s when we realized the level of stickiness on his hand was much worse than it was even in the initial inspection that had taken place two innings prior,” Bellino said. “So following the proper protocols, Phil [Cuzzi] immediately recognized it. Phil then asked me to come in to verify that the hand was too sticky. Both Phil and I touched his hand. As far as stickiness, level of stickiness, this was the stickiest that it has been since I’ve been inspecting hands, which now goes back three seasons.
“Compared to the first inning, the level of stickiness, it was so sticky that when we touched his hand, our fingers were sticking to his hand. And whatever was on there remained on our fingers afterwards for a couple innings, where you could still feel that the fingers were sticking together. So it was far more than we had ever seen before on a pitcher in live action.”
▪️ While Scherzer was adamant he was only using rosin, repeatedly telling the umpires this as they ejected him, that doesn’t necessarily matter if his hand was deemed so sticky the umpires fingers were sticking to it. The MLB rules make it clear that umpires must remove a player from the game if inspection reveals the pitcher’s hand is “unquestionably sticky.” They also state, “No player shall intentionally discolor or damage the ball by rubbing it with soil, rosin, paraffin, licorice, sand-paper, emery-paper or other foreign substance.” This is a difficult case to appeal since there’s no way to preserve the level of stickiness or the combination of chemicals on Scherzer’s hand for additional evaluation.
▪️ Buck Showalter deflected most questions about the situation after the game, but noted, “I know how Max works…It’s rosin and it’s what the league provides. So if that’s the case, everybody’s gonna have a problem.” Scherzer talked at length with reporters before departing for San Francisco, “I don’t get how I get ejected when I’m in front of MLB officials doing exactly what you want.”
▪️ What about the spin rate? Speaking earlier this week on Foul Territory, Scherzer discussed the difficulty in telling the difference between rosin and an illegal substance. He noted, “Everybody has spin rate. As long as you're within the spin rate. Play on.”
Looking at Scherzer’s spin rate from yesterday’s game, there was nothing out of the ordinary. Spin rates aren’t precise, they will fluctuate a bit from pitch to pitch, so you look for drastic changes in the 200-300 rpm range. As you can see below, Scherzer was well within his normal spin across all of his pitches. There wasn’t any drastic difference in their movement either.
🔹 What’s next?
Expect Scherzer to appeal. And expect him to lose. I don’t see how MLB can avoid issuing a 10-game suspension when the umpires are explicitly describing Scherzer’s hand as one of the stickiest they have ever inspected. The rules give them far-reaching discretion. It’s going to be hard to overcome that.
It’s worth nothing there have been only three player ejections since MLB started cracking down on foreign substances, and Phil Cuzzi has been involved in all of them. Crew Chief Dan Bellino was the umpire who infamously and awkwardly gazed at Madison Bumgarner while checking his hand last year.
Playing the San Francisco Giants might feel a bit like going to a high school reunion, Mets fans will quickly realize how bad they are, while noticing many familiar faces.
There are four ex-Mets who litter the Giant’s lineup, two who were traded for each other last summer, all of whom are surely to do damage over the next four days, because of course.
As we have highlighted over the past few weeks, J.D. Davis has re-found his stroke in the Bay Area, Wilmer Flores continues to do his thing, and both Michael Conforto and Darin Ruf are searching for new life. Conforto, returning to the lineup after missing some time with left calf tightness, hit his fourth home run of the season to help the Giants beat the Marlins yesterday.
Most surprising has been Davis. The 29-year-old right-hander, traded for Ruf last August, has not only started to hit at a career-best rate, but has also been flashing the leather. He told manager Gabe Kapler during Spring Training that he wanted to establish himself as an everyday player, win a gold glove and become a premier hitter… he wasn’t kidding!
“Coming off the sort of part-time player that he was for us last year and the part-time player that he was for the Mets, it was hard to visualize some of the goals that he had,” Kapler said, via MLB.com. “Because how was he going to be that regular of a player for us? But since the season began, he’s played Gold Glove-caliber defense, and he’s been arguably one of the better bats in all of baseball.”
Ironically, Davis has found success hitting against righties, an opportunity he would have never received had he stayed in a platoon role with the Mets.
⚾️ Kodai Senga will get a chance to try to quiet his bat on Friday night. We should see plenty of Ruf and Flores over the next few days if lefty Joey Lucchesi gets the call on Friday and David Peterson takes his turn on Saturday.
✈️ The Giants actually had a longer flight to make last night than the Mets ahead of Thursday’s matchup between the two teams. They flew cross country after snapping a five-game losing streak with a win over the Marlins in extra innings in Miami. They are 6–11 on the season, four games back of the first-place Diamondbacks, who can thank the Mets for pushing the Dodgers below .500 for one of the few times over the past several years.
💔 RIP: Before closing out the newsletter, I want to pause to remember someone special that we lost this week. Joe DeCaro, the founder of Metsmerized, passed away on Sunday. I still have so many emails from “Joe D” talking about the Mets. He gave me a chance to write for Metsmerized when I was first getting my feet wet in this space. Like so many others have noted, his influence is unquestioned. He will be greatly missed. In lieu of flowers, Joe's family asks that you make a donation to St. Jude's Children's hospital, a cause he believed deeply in.
◾️ The Oakland Athletics have signed a binding agreement to purchase land near the Las Vegas strip, which could be their new home as soon as 2027.
◾️ Former Met Trevor May was placed on the 15-day injured list with issues related to anxiety.
🔗 Max Scherzer's relationship with MLB makes ejection more complex, by John Harper, SNY: “MLB bigwigs have an intense dislike for him because he was such a hard-liner during last year’s labor negotiations, reportedly screaming at them at times during meetings as part of the negotiating committee. And Scherzer has hard feelings as well toward MLB, convinced that Rob Manfred and his people never negotiated in good faith during the lockout. The three-time Cy Young Award winner even voted no on the proposal that the players’ side finally accepted to end the lockout last March.”
🔗 Max Scherzer’s Mets ejection exposes the slipperiness of MLB’s sticky-stuff rules, by Dan Martin, NY Post: “Sweat and rosin. No, it’s not the name of a failed country music duo, it’s what Max Scherzer insisted was all he had on his hand when the Mets ace was ejected from his start against the Dodgers in a dramatic scene Wednesday in Los Angeles.”
And we close this one out with a wholesome photo of Brett Baty and Eduardo Escobar on the plate together, via SNY:
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RIP Joe D. I have enjoyed reading Metsmerized over the years. He will be missed.
When all is said and done, grown men, disguised as umpires, discussed their fingers as if they were lubing up for an intimate encounter to create controversy and insert themselves in the game. Go ahead, MLB, suspend Max and keep on pretending that you're cleaning up the game. The Mets will overcome this as well.
If the NY Mets split with the SF Mets, I will be pleased for them to go 7-3 on the road trip.