NEWSLETTER
After the whole Aaron Judge side-eye thing, the Blue Jays and Yankees continued to beef last night.
It turns out, Blue Jays pitcher Jay Jackson – old friend! – was tipping his pitches in a way that, allegedly, Yankees first base coach Travis Chapman could see (via The Athletic). So Judge wasn’t looking at his dugout for pitches, he was looking over at his first base coach. Perfectly legal.
Well, the Blue Jays didn’t want that happening again, so they (understandably) grumbled when third base coach Luis Rojas seemed to be straying from his coaching box:
I doubt that’ll be the end of that business. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, the crazy thing is that Yankees pitcher Domingo German, he of the previous “wash your hands, they’re too sticky” BS, this time actually got the boot from the game for using illegal substances on his hands:
I’m sure the Blue Jays were also pushing the umpires to aggressively check German’s fingers, especially after feeling like the Yankees were pulling a fast one on the pitch-tipping thing.
Then again, it’s not like this was a ticky-tack decision. It was a tacky-tack decision. There was no getting around it this time for German, as the umpires felt like it was as sticky as it gets:
How sticky was the stuff? Are we SURE he had stuff on his hands? Ahhhhhhh, yeah:
That’s about as subtle as … well, a giant glob of brown stuff all over your pitching fingers. How on earth would you get through even one hand check like that? Ridiculous.
German will be subject to the automatic ten-game suspension, and I have a feeling he wouldn’t be able to successfully appeal that one.
