Astros pitcher Ronel Blanco was handed a 10-game suspension on Wednesday for breaking Major League Baseball rules about using foreign substances.
Blanco got ejected from Tuesday night’s game against the Oakland Athletics. MLB’s senior vice president of on-field operations, Michael Hill, announced the suspension along with an undisclosed fine.
Houston’s general manager, Dana Brown, mentioned that Blanco won’t challenge the suspension. It was supposed to start Wednesday night against Oakland.
“At first, he thought about challenging it, but then he and his agent decided, ‘I want to get back out there. I won’t appeal this.’ And he’s moving forward,” Brown said.
Blanco had a strong start to the season, throwing a no-hitter in his debut and holding a 4-0 record with a 2.09 ERA. Since the Astros have a six-man rotation, Brown expects Blanco to miss just one start.
“Ronel Blanco is a good guy,” Brown added. “He’s worked hard to earn his spot in the starting rotation. He sees it as, ‘I don’t want to be sidelined. Let’s get back to pitching.'”
Blanco got thrown out at the beginning of the fourth inning in a 2-1 win against Oakland after umpires found a foreign substance on his glove. First base umpire Erich Bacchus described it as “the stickiest stuff” he’s ever felt on a glove.
Third base umpire and crew chief Laz Diaz ejected Blanco after checking his glove before he even pitched in the fourth inning. Umpires, Blanco, and Houston manager Joe Espada gathered at the mound for a few minutes to discuss the issue before Blanco was ejected.
Bacchus mentioned that there was nothing on Blanco’s glove when he checked it in the middle of the first inning, but he found the substance during his second check before the fourth inning.
“I felt something inside the glove,” Bacchus said. “It was the stickiest stuff I’ve felt on a glove since we started doing this a few years ago.”
Once Bacchus found the substance, he called in the rest of the crew to confirm. “Everyone checked the glove to make sure we all saw the same thing, and he had to be ejected because he had a foreign substance on his glove,” Diaz said.
Brown mentioned that the ejection was based on the umpire’s judgment, as he felt some sticky substance on Blanco’s glove, without specifying what it was. He clarified that Blanco sweats a lot.
“I believe they thought it was more than just rosin, but from our viewpoint, Ronel sweats a ton,” Brown said. “We think it might have been a mix of sweat and rosin. It’s up to the umpire’s call. He thought it was a sticky substance, so we had to go with his decision. We see Blanco as someone who sweats a lot, and when you add that to rosin, it might seem sticky.”
After the game, Blanco denied using any illegal substance. “It was probably just rosin that I applied to my left arm,” he said. “Maybe because of the sweat, it got into the glove, and that’s maybe what they found.”
Espada noted seeing “white powder” inside Blanco’s glove when he went to the mound. “It seemed like rosin to me,” Espada said. “You’re not allowed to use rosin on your non-pitching hand, and that’s what it looked like to me. It was a bit sticky due to moisture and sweat, but that’s what it appeared to be.”
Blanco had a strong performance on Tuesday, allowing four hits and striking out one in three scoreless innings.
