To give you some background on this:
Astros pitchers, as a unit, have been accused of using a foreign substance to increase their fastball’s spin rate. What this means is, essentially, they’ve been accused of putting something like pine tar on their fingers to increase their grip on the baseball, which in turn increases how quickly the baseball spins upon release, which translates to a fastball that doesn’t drop as much as it otherwise would, which is a fastball that’s more difficult to hit. Generally, a pitcher’s spin rate is what it is, but Gerrit Cole’s jumped after he was traded to Houston, provoking accusations that the Astros were systematically using pine tar. Anecdotally, there are rumblings that the use of pine tar is widespread in the game. Some have advocated for its use to be allowed by the MLB, since it improves pitchers’ control (therefore making batters safer, albeit more challenged as hitters) and it’s so hard to police that its “legalization” would level the playing field.
So, it was easy to make jokes last night when Aaron Sanchez and his 6.07 ERA (5.03 FIP) in Toronto went to Houston and immediately threw the first six innings of a no-hitter.
But, for what it’s worth, Sanchez’s spin rate last night remained the same as it’s been:
This doesn’t exonerate the Astros, or Cole, and I don’t want to give the impression they necessarily need to be exonerated. It’s possible nothing against the rules is happening (there have been claims Cole’s mechanical changes could be responsible for the uptick). It’s possible almost everyone is breaking the rules and the Astros aren’t any more poorly behaved than the rest of the MLB. We really don’t know. And we do know that whether they’re breaking rules or not, the Astros are almost certainly doing other things in their coaching and game-planning that are perfectly allowed and make Houston a wonderland for pitchers (not that Sanchez is already an example of this—it was just one start).
But it’s worth looking at, because it’s interesting, and because it would have been very brazen had Sanchez’s spin rate jumped immediately upon arrival in Houston.
