Another win for Gerrit Cole.

An Orange County Superior Court judge on Monday dismissed a defamation lawsuit filed against Major League Baseball and the Los Angeles Angels by Brian “Bubba” Harkins that prominently mentioned the Yankees ace, ESPN.com reported.

Harkins, the long-time visiting clubhouse manager, was canned last March after the team learned he was supplying illegal ball-doctoring substances to opposing pitchers.

Daniel L. Rasmussen, an attorney representing Harkins, said he plans to appeal the ruling in the next 60 days, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The case was dismissed on the grounds that there was not enough evidence to prove the 55-year-old, who had been with the Angeles for nearly four decades, had been defamed during the firing process.

Harkins filed suit last August claiming he was made a “public scapegoat” in baseball’s efforts to crack down on the use of foreign substances. He cited defamation and false light in his original complaint, while also submitting a 2019 text message from Cole in attempt to prove applying rosin and pine tar on baseballs has been a long-held, accepted practice.

“Hey Bubba, it’s Gerrit Cole, I was wondering if you could help me out with this sticky situation,” the pitcher, then with the Astros, wrote on Jan. 17, 2019 with a wink-face emoji. “We don’t see you until May, but we have some road games in April that are in cold weather places. The stuff I had last year seizes up when it gets cold.”

Harkins stated that the publicity surrounding his firing unfairly cast him in a negative light that hindered his ability to find employment. MLB and the Angels filed a motion to dismiss Harkins’ complaint in early November.

In an opposition to the league’s motion, Harkins’ lawyer attempted to show the widespread use of his clients’ concoction and show that others had not been punished for similar transgressions.

In addition to the Cole text message, Harkins presented notes from a phone conversation in which Astros star hurler Justin Verlander and former Cole teammate allegedly told him that MLB began to crack down on pitchers’ use of ball-doctoring substances when it learned teams were conducting studies to create more advanced blends to maximize pitchers’ spin rates.

“It’s an ongoing legal issue and I am not comfortable talking about it now,” Cole said last week.

The opposition also included testaments from longtime players like Wally Joyner and Mike Sweeney, who defended Harkins and named several other pitchers – like Max Scherzer, Felix Hernandez, Corey Kluber, Adam Wainwright and several other current and former Angels players – who had also allegedly asked Harkins for his mixture.

Another reason the suit was dismissed was the fact that comments from the league and the Angels toward Harkins were made in private and that subsequent reports about the reason for his firing were attributed to anonymous sources.

“This is not to say that the termination was justified under the circumstances,” the judge’s ruling read, per ESPN. “Only that the plaintiff cannot show that these statements were false and defamatory.”