Astros' Blanco faces suspension after foreign substance ejection

HOUSTON (SportsRadio 610)- When first base umpire Erich Bacchus conducted a routine foreign substance check on Astros pitcher Ronel Blanco before the fourth inning of Tuesday's game, he felt something that gave him pause.

“It was the stickiest stuff I’ve felt on a glove since we’ve been doing this for a few years now,” Bacchus told a pool reporter after the Astros 2-1 win over the Oakland A’s. “So, I brought the crew in. The crew conferred and then we went from there.”

Blanco claimed the substance was simply rosin, but the crew disagreed. Blanco was promptly ejected, and his glove was confiscated.

“We just felt it was sticky, sticky enough that our fingers got stuck,” crew chief Laz Diaz said. “So now it’s all up to the office on what it was and all that.”

Bacchus said he found nothing when he checked Blanco for a foreign substance after the first inning.

“(It) was probably just rosin I put on my left arm,” Blanco said through an interpreter. “Maybe because of the sweat, it got into the glove, and maybe that’s what they found.”

Astros manager Joe Espada said he thought he felt rosin on Blanco’s glove, which he says is against the rules, something Blanco said he was unaware of.

“You could kind of see it inside his glove, the white powder, so it sucks because he was throwing the ball well.”

Blanco did not allow a run in three innings, lowering his ERA to 2.09. He now faces a mandatory 10-game suspension, which he says he will appeal, but no pitcher ejected for a foreign substance has avoided the suspension.

“It’s something that’s obviously really frustrating,” Blanco said. “I want to go out there and compete and try to help the team, and I couldn’t do that.

“I think that we just need to wait for them to check the glove. It’s a neutral party checking the glove, (rosin) is all they’re going to find.”