As he walked back to the dugout after Yoan Moncada flew out to right to end the first inning of Tuesday's 6-3 win a against the White Sox, Tyler Anderson became the first Pirates’ pitcher to experience the new, mandatory inspection for banned foreign substances.
Home plate umpire Vic Carapazza and crew chief Jerry Meals gave a TSA-like check of Anderson’s hat, glove and belt area before clearing the left-hander to return to the dugout to some sarcastic cheers from the Pirates in the dugout on hand to witness Anderson's acquittal.
"I think that was the most tests I've passed in a day in my whole life," Anderson joked after the game.
It’s an odd scene to see for the first time in person, but it’s something that will be part of the game moving forward. Opposing pitcher Lucas Giolito was subject to the same inspection coming off the mound in the bottom half of the first inning.
The new procedures have been in the works for a couple weeks but didn’t take effect until Monday, which was a Pirates’ off-day.
Anderson was excellent for 6 2/3 innings against the White Sox on Tuesday before Yasmani Grandal's three-run, go-ahead homer in the seventh spoiled the outing. For Anderson, the inspections were little more than, as he put it, "an additional stop to the dugout." He called it a very "cordial" process.
"They check your belt, they check your hat. There's nothing in there, you're good to go. I'm sure they don't want to be doing it as much as we don't want to do it," he said. "Let's get this done and get back to the game."
Obviously, these checks can devolve into something much worse. But they were barely noticeable after the first inning Tuesday with a sarcastic cheer from a group of White Sox fans behind the third-base dugout after Giolito was cleared in the first inning being one of the few memories of the actual checks.
JT Brubaker watched the first such inspection in baseball Monday afternoon, when Jacob deGrom of the Mets passed his check after the first inning of their game against the Braves. Seeing the actual friendly probe of deGrom’s hat, glove and belt didn’t serve as much of an indicator for how the processes will go in each of Brubaker’s future starts.
“ Honestly I think it's going to be based off of the crew chief and what the home-plate umpire is that night. What they think they need to check,” Brubaker said during a one-on-one interview on the field at PNC Park on Tuesday. “I know they probably don't want to come up and just start grabbing on players and stuff, and I don't know even if they're allowed to touch the player or not. We got to just hand them our gear. Let them check it. They clear us. That's it. It's done. It's over.”
Brubaker didn’t offer any criticism of the new system for inspections in itself. He even made note that letting the pitchers come off the field before conducting the check should not have any impact on the pace of the game.
But he was skeptical as to why the new processes took effect in the middle of a season.
“There's nothing us players can really do about it,” Brubaker said. “Would it have been nice to have it starting up in a fresh year, so, when you are throwing your bullpens in the offseason, it's good? Yeah. That would have been good to practice instead of just some guys trying to go cold turkey. If anybody's using stuff, going cold turkey is difficult. So, yeah, it'd have been nice to possibly get just a feel of it going into the offseason.”
It’s interesting to hear Brubaker’s perspective because that line should be confirmation that he knows somebody was using some sticky stuff -- be it pine tar, spider tack or the makeshift sunscreen and rosin combination.
Prior to Tuesday’s game, Brubaker said there was no sort of special messaging from the Pirates on anything besides what the guidelines actually were. Derek Shelton said in a pregame Zoom call with the media that the pitcher group has met multiple times about the issue, and they were shown a memo from the league office before first pitch Tuesday.
Regardless of what the actual procedures are, Shelton has maintained that what’s most important is uniformity across the league in terms of enforcement.
“I think that's been the big thing throughout, as long as we're doing the same way at every single ballpark, then I'm fine with it,” Shelton said. “Adhering to the rules is important. I just want to make sure we stay on the same playing field and it's one of those things where everybody's checked the same way.”
Based on what Brubaker and Shelton are saying, they’re likely to be suspicious of the entire system until they start to see some consistency among different umpiring crews and ballparks. On Tuesday, they got their first taste.
But this situation will probably remain fluid for at least a few more weeks.
