Everyone else has weighed in on the Jon Lester glove substance issue, so here is a quick rundown of what happened: Cardinals minor league pitcher Tyler Melling first posted a picture on Twitter spurring interest about something on Lester's glove.
Lester was very good on Wednesday night, tossing over seven shutout innings and while the picture showed off some green gunk on his glove and he was also seen on video touching his glove before tossing the ball, but did he doctor it? It is not against the rules for pitchers to help with their grip, which Jeff Passan at Yahoo pointed out, but the MLB came in and said there was no issues with his moves. Sometimes pitchers use rosin to help with grip and as long as they aren't putting it on the ball, it is okay by the rules.
Lester was called out a bit for the substance, but Passan wrote that the team uses BullFrog sunscreen and that when it gets mixed with rosin, it can be tacky that helps with grip on the ball and they previously have used it in the playoffs. The club was not called out by the Cardinals and Lester was not accused of doctoring the ball and the main attitude of many around the league is that it happens and it's not a big deal.
Passan writes that many in the league do the same thing and that teams are mostly using substances to help with gripping the ball and that is what Lester was likely doing. Passan writes about the past and puts in in context and basically now the scandal is coming from nothing and the Red Sox are up 1-0 and that's the main story here. The Cardinals were sloppy and the Red Sox took advantage and now they have the chance to go up 2-0 with Michael Wacha and John Lackey pitching.
"We cannot draw any conclusions from this video," a statement from Major League Baseball read in response to the buzz the accusation generated Thursday morning. "There were no complaints from the Cardinals and the umpires never detected anything indicating a foreign substance throughout the game."
