Major League Baseball has tweaked its rules several times over the past year in an effort to speed the game up and make it more exciting. Some players have legitimate complaints about these changes, as do the fans, but a recent game between the Washington Nationals and Philadelphia Phillies proved that sometimes these rules changes can make the game more exciting — though not always in the way intended.
The backstory is that pitchers have been putting sticky goop on their fingers, which allows them to impart more spin at a higher velocity. MLB has cracked down, requiring umpires to check pitchers to make sure they are not using “sticky stuff.”
Nationals ace Max Scherzer was checked twice during his start on Tuesday, once after his first inning and again after his third. But then, as Scherzer was working his way through his fourth inning, striking out Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm as he went, Phillies Manager Joe Girardi demanded that the umpires check him again.
Girardi claimed he was suspicious of Scherzer because the pitcher took off his hat and ran his hand through his hair at one point. But to Scherzer and most Nationals fans, something else was going on: Girardi either didn’t believe Scherzer, a future Hall of Famer, was good enough to strike out .233-hitting Bohm, or he wanted to break up Scherzer’s rhythm.
Girardi succeeded at having Scherzer checked again. But rather than throw Scherzer off his game, Girardi just pissed him off. Scherzer cruised through the fourth and fifth and finished with eight strikeouts, allowing only two hits. As he walked off the mound after completing his start, he stared at the Phillies dugout and said with his eyes what everyone was thinking: Check this, rat.
Girardi didn’t like Scherzer’s stare and rushed the field in response. Scherzer continued to taunt him, and the umpires did the world a favor and tossed Girardi. The internet blew up, and suddenly, everyone realized this was one of the most entertaining games they’d seen in a while.
But is that a good thing?
Of course, sports should capture crowds and generate excitement, but deliberately changing the rules of the game to accomplish both of those things threatens the integrity of the sport. Allowing Girardi to interrupt the game in bad faith and subjecting Scherzer to multiple sticky substance checks upset the pace of the game. That doesn’t make baseball better, it makes it worse — even if it does make for must-watch television.
