Mike's Mets - Cognitive Dissonance and Max

 

By Mike Steffanos

Max Scherzer is correct in questioning the arbitrary nature of MLB's sticky stuff enforcement, but he was still wrong in putting himself in the position to get tossed out of the game.

I'm on team Max Scherzer. Something is very wrong with Major League Baseball's enforcement of pitchers using sticky stuff to enhance their grip on the baseball. Max is only the third pitcher to be ejected from a game and subject to the automatic 10-game suspension in the three years the rule has been on the books. All of the ejections have involved the same umpire. Phil Cuzzi appears to be the only person involved in policing the game of baseball who can differentiate between "tacky" and "sticky." And the more explanations I read about his decision — including his own — the less I am convinced.

But I keep coming back to the same place. Max Scherzer is an intense competitor but also a very smart man. Max has won over 200 MLB games thanks, in part, to the physical gifts he was born with and his intensely competitive nature. However, just as important is his keen intellect. Max is just plain smarter than many of the hitters he faces, which gives him another advantage to exploit. But Max's intelligence failed to save him on a Wednesday afternoon in La La Land. Ultimately, it will be Scherzer and the Mets who will pay the price for that failure.

As Will Sammon documents in this piece on The Athletic, Scherzer's ejection from the game didn't come as an ambush:

The hoopla started after Scherzer completed his second inning.

At the end of the inning, Cuzzi, the first base umpire, performed a substance check. While checking Scherzer's hand, Cuzzi deemed that it was, "slightly sticky, a little tacky, and it was dark in color," the umpire said. Scherzer said it was just rosin. Both Scherzer and Cuzzi agreed that Scherzer would then wash off his hand. Cuzzi said he told him, "OK, you got to wash that off. I'm going to check you when you come out. And there better not be anything there."

Then, before the third inning, Scherzer was instructed by Cuzzi to change his glove because the umpire felt the pocket of the glove felt sticky. Scherzer acknowledges that he understood at that point that he would be under rigorous scrutiny from the umpires for the rest of the game. So why would Max go out there for the fourth inning with enough sticky stuff on his hand to give the umpires the chance to toss him? Even if it was just "rosin and sweat," as Max claimed — and I tend to believe him — why take any chances to allow Cuzzi to pull his whole sticky vs. tacky act?

To finish reading this article on Mike's Mets, please click here.