Trevor Bauer is firing back at Major League Baseball after the league announced it would be looking into pitchers who may be tampering balls used in gameplay — and then said they would be investigating several “suspicious” baseballs used by Bauer.
Taking to Twitter, Bauer referred to “misleading” and “clickbait” headlines being used by the media, and argued balls were being taken from other pitchers as well but seemed to imply baseball writers only focused on the balls being taken from him.
This development is quite ironic, considering Bauer has been more than outspoken in recent years, about everything from pitchers using pine tar, spin rates, and of course, taking aim at the Houston Astros following their cheating scandal. He has even blamed MLB for the advantages some pitchers were using, although he did not name names. Bauer explained, “It’s not something that (MLB wants) to address. It’s not something they want public. It’s part of why there’s been such backlash on me making it public.” Bauer even went as far as to say pitchers’ use of pine tar is a “bigger advantage than steroids ever were.”
Most recently, Bauer took to YouTube, which he used as an outlet over this past offseason when marketing himself to potential landing options for him during free agency, to explain his outlook on MLB’s announcement to regulate pitching balls. In a video he titled, “MLB’s Sticky Situation,” he questions if the league is actually concerned with holding pitchers accountable, or if they are just trying to appease the masses — arguing this should not be news to the league.
Bauer then goes on to reason that if a pitcher threw a pitch that then went out of play and they found a foreign substance on that ball, they would not technically be able to determine if the substance came from the use of the pitcher, or off the glove of another player, or off of a bat with pine tar on it.
There are already reports that the MLB Player’s Union will take action to defend Bauer, and seemingly any other pitcher, from the punishment that is not covered in current rules and regulations.
Although it is yet to be seen what MLB will do in the event a pitcher is found guilty of using pine tar or any other foreign substance to enhance pitching performance, Bauer was certain in his YouTube video that “you’re not going to see anyone getting ejected or fined or suspended or anything like that.”
