Max Scherzer has been suspended 10 games by MLB and fined $10,000 after he was ejected from Wednesday’s Mets win over the Dodgers for having what umpires deemed to be a hand that was too sticky.
Scherzer will appeal the suspension, The Post’s Jon Heyman reports.
The 10-game suspension is automatic for a pitcher who was ejected for violating MLB’s rules on sticky stuff.
Scherzer was tossed before the bottom of the fourth inning by umpire Phil Cuzzi after being checked multiple times during his start.
The right-hander contends that he had nothing but rosin and sweat on his hand and used alcohol to wash his hand before the fourth inning, when he said he knew he would be checked.
“I’d have to be an absolute idiot to try to do anything when I am coming back out for the fourth,” Scherzer said after Wednesday’s game. “I am in front of the MLB official that is underneath [near the dugout]. I wash my hand with alcohol in front of the official. I then apply rosin and I then grabbed sweat. I then go back out there and Phil Cuzzi says my hand is too sticky.”
Mets pitcher Max Scherzer was suspended 10 games following his ejection Wednesday. AP
Max Scherzer, who seemed confused by his ejection, will appeal. Getty ImagesCuzzi and plate umpire Dan Bellino said Scherzer’s hand was stickier than any they’ve checked in the last three years.
“As far as the level of stickiness, this was the stickiest it has been since I’ve been inspecting hands, which goes back three seasons,” Bellino told a pool reporter after Wednesday’s game. “Compared to the first inning, the level of stickiness, it was so sticky that when we touched his hand, our fingers were sticking to his hand, and whatever was on there remained on our fingers afterwards for a couple of innings where you could still feel that the fingers were sticking together.”
The only three pitchers ejected for sticky stuff since the crackdown began in 2021 — Scherzer, Hector Santiago and Caleb Smith — were all tossed by Cuzzi.
“The Cuzzi on-field spectrometer is not the answer,” Scherzer’s agent Scott Boras told The Post’s Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman Wednesday. “MLB needs to employ available scientific methods (not subjective) to create verifiable certainly of it rules.”
