QUEENS — Major League Baseball announced on Wednesday that it has suspended Mets reliever Drew Smith after he was ejected from Tuesday night’s game against the Yankees for failing a sticky substance check by crew chief Bill Miller.
With it, the Mets work with a 12-man pitching staff through June 25.
Smith was called in for the seventh inning of the Subway Series opener but was stopped before he could throw a single pitch. Miller and his crew deemed that both of his hands — but not his glove — were illegally sticky.
“It doesn’t really make much sense to me because if my left hand was sticky, I feel like my glove would be sticky as well,” Smith said on Tuesday night. “So there’s just a lot about the explanation and the process that I didn’t really agree with or understand.”
While there was initial speculation that Smith would appeal the suspension, which is now the automatic punishment for being thrown out of game for failing the league-mandated checks, but Mets manager Buck Showalter said that it would have been an “uphill battle.”
Smith is the second Mets pitcher to be ejected and suspended this season in the majors, joining Max Scherzer, who was forced to sit for 10 games in late April after being run from a game against the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Mets also had an additional two pitchers in the minors ejected for the same reason, making it four out of the five hurlers ejected in professional baseball coming from the Queens organization.
“I can do that math,” Showalter said. “So when the questions are asked, tell me why I shouldn’t feel [curious about why Mets pitchers are being focused on]…
“You’ve got to look in the mirror and say, instead of it always being somebody else’s fault, or somebody singling you out or picking you out, are you doing something wrong?”
For more on Drew Smith and the Mets, visit AMNY.com
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