Last night, Adam Wainwright once again came to the rescue for the Cardinals, going six innings and allowing just two runs in a 4-2 win over the Marlins.
Though he didn’t get a decision, Wainwright lowered his ERA to 3.95.
After the game, Wainwright was asked a question about whether or not he had ever used a foreign substance while pitching.
The question comes in light of Major League Baseball beginning to crack down on pitchers using foreign substances and fired Angels clubhouse employee Bubba Harkins releasing screenshots of texts he received from multiple pitchers regarding a certain substance he created to help pitchers get a better grip on the ball. Wainwright was one of the pitchers who reached out to Harkins.
“I got nothing to hide,” Wainwright said. “What bubba said is true. I tried it in 2019 and it didn’t work for me. I only had one order and it didn’t work for me and I gave it away very soon afterward.”
Last night, MLB announced that any pitcher caught using a foreign substance will be suspended 10 days with pay. Other pitchers that were included in Harkins’ text stream were Tyler Chatwood and Gerrit Cole. A Nationals clubhouse employee was also in the text stream, asking for an order to be delivered to Max Scherzer in 2017.
It’s worth noting that at the time these pitchers were using foreign substances, Major League Baseball was not policing it. In other words, it was legal at the time, so Wainwright should be safe from any trouble.
What happens next is up for debate. Could this provide hitters with an advantage going forward? Possibly. But it would be pointless to suspend Wainwright given the fact that this wasn’t being cracked down upon at the time, and the fact that pitchers have been doing this for years.
The only question now is who gets caught first.
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