MLB Notebook: Baseball has a sticky situation on its hands

Major League Baseball seems bound and determined to make the banning of substances a major story through the summer. While there are plenty of news items from around the sport, one has to think this is the headline item for the foreseeable future, and it once again tops this week’s notebook.

A Sticky Situation

Apologies for the pun, but it was a lay-up, as pitchers all over the league are up in arms (there’s that wordplay again) over the handling of this situation. Tyler Glasnow, in fact, blamed a recent UCL injury on baseball’s crackdown, while Garrett Richards went on record as saying his increased fastball usage of late was due to the change in policy.

It’s going to be fascinating to see pitchers adjust, and if we’ve learned anything, it’s that many of them will not do so quietly.

Road Woes Continue for D-Backs, Orioles

We wrote about Arizona’s troubles away from home last week, and those haven’t gotten better. The Diamondbacks dropped their 22nd consecutive road game Wednesday against the San Francisco Giants, one day after blowing a seven-run lead in a 9-8 heartbreaker in the Bay Area.

Meanwhile, the Baltimore Orioles are also struggling outside of their friendly confines and have dropped 18 consecutive road games. Their last win away from Camden Yards came when John Means fired his no-hitter earlier in the season.

Cincy Makes Opponents See Red

Okay, how about a good story now? The Cincinnati Reds, who struggled in the early part of the season, have swept both the Colorado Rockies and Milwaukee Brewers to win six straight. In doing so, the club has moved to 35-31 on the season and is just two games back of the NL Central lead, which is jointly held by the Brewers and the Chicago Cubs. Cincy’s pitching has shined of late, as the Reds have given up just six runs over the last four games.

Straight A’s in Oakland

We’ll finish things off with a look at the AL West, where the Oakland Athletics have matched the Reds with a six-game win streak of their own. The last three victories came in a sweep of the L.A. Angels, and the series finale featured the return of starting center fielder Ramon Laureano.

The A’s also made news this week by exercising the 2022 option of manager Bob Melvin, who became the winningest skipper in club history since the team’s move to Northern California.