What The Guardians Are Saying About The James Karinchak Foreign Substance Check
The Guardians bullpen continues to be one of the best in the MLB, and it's rare that they give up a run. A lot of this has to do with James Karinchak and his lights-out performances.
But in Friday night's win, he was faced with a challenge that not many pitchers have to deal with in the middle of an inning.
With one out in the bottom of the eighth inning Twins manager, Rocco Baldelli asked umpires to ask them to check Karinchak for forgein substance.
Credit to Karinchak, who usually has a wild presence on the mound, calmly walked to the umpire, complied with the check, and carried on after the umpire gave him the all-clear.
As for Rocco on the other hand, it must be pretty embarrassing to challenge an opposing pitcher for cheating only to be wrong.
After the game, Karinchak said, "I knew people were obviously thinking I was cheating, but I had no worries because it was just sweat and rosin. So, come check."
Clearly, he wasn't too worried about it.
This is what Tito had to say about it:
Cal Quantrill also had some words for the Twins manager after the game: "You want to basically call a time out, and freeze the kicker halfway between an inning, there should be a punishment for being wrong. He was wrong today. I’m glad we were able to hold off and win."
I completely agree with Cal. There should absolutely be a punishment for a manager who accuses another of cheating and is wrong. At least take away the team's replay review challenge.
MLB needs to get a handle on this as fast as possible. It isn't a good look for opposing managers to be challenging pitchers for cheating left and right in the middle of innings, especially in the playoffs.
As for the rest of the series, this may have lit a fire under the Guardians. Obviously, this is a big series but now they have a little extra fuel to use as they hold onto the AL Central lead.
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