Major League Baseball officials are investigating Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer for potentially applying a foreign substance to balls in his start Wednesday against the Oakland Athletics, according to a report by Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. While it is unclear what type of substance is suspected, or even if Bauer was the one who applied it, the umpires officiating the interleague match collected several baseballs used by the starting pitcher after noticing that they had a “visible, sticky marking.”
The investigation of Bauer comes less than two weeks after the Commissioner's office sent a memo to all 30 clubs, outlining new policies meant to deter any tampering of the balls used. With the league increasingly focused on reducing time of play, as well as leveling the playing field for hitters, the focus on banning illegal substances is meant to reduce the amount of “spin” a pitcher is able to generate on balls thrown, which subsequently increases the difficulty of hitting it. Since 2007, the number of strikeouts each year has increased–with 32,189 K's recorded leaguewide in '07 to 42,823 in 2019–a timeframe that coincides with the attention paid to spin-rate.
To help deter any doctoring of baseballs, MLB has not only placed compliance officers in each stadium to monitor batting practice and dugouts but has also partnered with Rowlings to track data postgame to identify any abnormalities in the performance of the balls used.
However, while the league made clear that it was turning its focus towards deterring any tampering, they did not specify the punishment for getting caught, opening the door to less than severe repercussions for Bauer if he is found to be guilty.
“I don’t believe unless you can catch somebody in the act, doing it in the moment, and you get something on their hand or on their person, that you can truly prove 100 percent that they are doing it,” one general manager told Rosenthal. “We all know. But to suspend somebody for 10 games, you’ve got to have real evidence.”
In Bauer's defense, he may not have noticed the substance if he was only pitching with one eye open.
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