Yankees pitcher Michael Pineda was caught on camera with a brown substance on his hand during the Yankees 4-1 victory over the Red Sox on Thursday. While many speculated that the substance was pine tar, which would be against MLB rules, Pineda had a different explanation.
"It's dirt. Between the innings, I'm sweating too much, my hand. I'm putting dirt - I'm grasping the dirt. ... I'm not using pine tar," Pineda told reporters, according to the AP.
On Friday, Major League Baseball executive vice president Joe Torre told Joel Sherman of the New York Post that the league has no plans to suspend Pineda:
"The umpires did not observe an application of a foreign substance during the game and the issue was not raised by the Red Sox. Given those circumstances, there are no plans to issue a suspension, but we intend to talk to the Yankees regarding what occurred."
The Red Sox apparently didn’t mention anything because they noticed too late.
"I became aware of it in the fourth inning through the video that someone had seen," Red Sox manager John Farrell told reporters, according to the AP. "And then, when he came back out for the fifth inning, it looked, based on where it was told to me it was located, it looked like the palm of his right hand was clean."
Yankees manager Joe Girardi sounded annoyed that he was repeatedly asked about the substance, and simply repeated “I never saw it. There's nothing really for me to talk about," when questioned by media.
Whatever the reason, Pineda was nasty, throwing six innings of one-run ball while allowing four hits and striking out seven. Check out the Twitter reaction and judge for yourself if he was cheating on Thursday night.
A no-hitter through four innings! This is great for Michael Pineda... oh... pic.twitter.com/FziFVyYF8s
— NegativeDunkalectics (@negativedunks) April 11, 2014
Even better photo of potential #PinedaPineTar, courtesy of @JFeitelberg pic.twitter.com/s6Oenkcj6f
— Chris Cotillo (@ChrisCotillo) April 11, 2014
What is on Michael Pineda's pitching hand??? #yankees #redsox @ESPNNYYankees @AndrewMarchand @Buster_ESPN pic.twitter.com/mokPjNxKV5 — Joey Santanello (@joeysantanello) April 11, 2014
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