Mike Fiers pitched a no-hitter in a 3-0 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers on Friday night, and questions have arisen about whether or not he had some illegal assistance.
MLB Network picked up the feed of the game as Fiers was going for the no-hitter in the ninth inning, leading to a much larger TV audience. Many fans noticed during a zoomed-in shot that Fiers appeared to have pine tar in his glove.
We did get No-Hit.. But he did use pine tar pic.twitter.com/8C8NezzdWG
— Sandzz (@sandoval015) August 22, 2015
That sure as heck looks to me like pine tar, which is a substance some pitchers like to use to improve their grip. As we’ve seen with Michael Pineda who used it on his pitching hand and then later his neck, some pitchers love to use that on the ball. Even Clay Buchholz was involved in a similar controversy two years ago when it looked like he had a glossy substance on his forearm. Bottom line: you’d have a hard time convincing me this was anything other than pine tar.
Had the Dodgers — or the umpires — picked up on what Fiers appeared to have been doing, he would likely have been ejected from the game. Instead he made history with the 11th no-hitter ever for the Astros. Now the Dodgers can add this accusation to a growing list of complaints about the game.
