Sonny Gray may have been the first Cincinnati Reds pitcher in franchise history to sit on the mound before pitching in an inning.
Before the fourth inning Sunday, Gray walked to the mound, sat down and then rubbed the dirt across the back of his left leg. The reason? He had pine tar on the back of his leg and he didn't want umpires to suspect him of using a foreign substance.
Gray hit in the previous half-inning and wiped pine tar on his leg. The Reds informed home-plate umpire Lance Barrett before Gray sat on the mound to avoid a potential ejection.
"I grabbed a bat and my whole left hand had pine tar on it," Gray said. "Then I wiped it. Now my whole pants had pine tar on it. I was like, ‘I don’t know how this is going to work.’
"Then we showed Lance. He was like, ‘you have to change pants.’ I was like, ‘can I just get some dirt and rub it on it? You can feel it.’ He said, ‘you’re not going to go to it are you?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to it unless (stuff) hits the fan.’ Maybe I should have. No, it was good. I ended up rubbing a bunch of dirt and everything and it was good."
There has been only one Major League pitcher ejected from a game – Seattle's Héctor Santiago – after the league began cracking down on foreign substances.
Pitchers who are found with a foreign substance, outside of the rosin bag, are subject to a 10-game suspension. Starting pitchers have two mandatory checks for foreign substances during their starts.
Under league rules, even if Gray had pine tar on his hand from hitting, "the pitcher ultimately will be responsible for any ball that is delivered with a foreign substance on it."
Gray allowed four runs in the fifth inning in the Reds' 8-0 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers.
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