Houston Astros starting pitcher Ronel Blanco was ejected from his latest start on Tuesday after a foreign substance check gone wrong. During an exchange with umpires Laz Diaz and Erich Bacchus, Blanco claimed that any substance on his glove was merely rosin, and could be found on his arm as well.
"Just probably rosin I put on my left arm," Blanco said in Spanish through an interpreter postgame. "Maybe because of the sweat it got into the glove and that's maybe what they found."
Blanco denied using an illegal foreign substance, though comments from Bacchus suggest the glove should be sent to MLB for further testing.
"I felt something inside the glove," Bacchus said. "It was the stickiest stuff I've felt on a glove since we've been doing this for a few years now."
Astros starting pitcher Ronel Blanco under fire after foreign substance check
Blanco threw a no-hitter for the Astros earlier this season, and has been a surprising development in a starting rotation hampered by injury. Any absence from Blanco -- even if just a start or two due to MLB action -- would hurt and Astros team sitting near the basement of the AL West.
Astros manager Joe Espada, who came out of the Astros dugout to defend his pitcher, believes Blanco used a rosin mix rather than an illegal substance. Still, even Espada immediately noticed how sticky Blanco's glove was.
"It looked to me when I grabbed the glove [that] there was some rosin," Espada said. "You're not allowed to use rosin on your non-pitching hand, and that's what it looked like to me. It was a little bit sticky with the moisture and the sweat, but that's what it looked like to me."
As Espada mentions, using rosin on a pitcher's non-throwing hand is illegal, and grounds for an ejection. Since umpires do these foreign substance checks every few innings, Blanco was bound to be caught eventually, whether his actions were intentional or not.
Blanco has an ERA just over two this season, and while the Astros would defeat Oakland 2-1 on Tuesday, one of their best pitchers now has a target on his back. One can expect his next start to be filled with aggressive foreign substance checks.