Drew Smith became the latest New York pitcher to be ejected following a sticky substance check from umpires, joining Domingo German and Mets teammate Max Scherzer who have also been tossed in 2023.
Smith was noticeably angry about the decision from the umpiring crew, and Tiki was equally annoyed about the process in general.
"I almost feel like it's an umpire's way to inject themselves into the game, and make a statement on their seriousness," Tiki said. "We as observers don't care about this. We really don't care. If you're fully cheating and you have sticky glue or whatever on your hand, that's one thing. But if there's just a combination of sweat and rosin or alcohol and chewing tobacco, we don't care.
"If there's going to be a rule, and the umpires are going to talk in superlatives about it being the stickiest stuff you've ever felt in your life, then you gotta have a way to measure it. You can't hand out 10-game suspensions because you subjectively, not objectively, believe someone is cheating."
Plenty of pitchers have voiced the same frustrations, with Smith calling the process "arbitrary," and Scherzer sounded off on it multiple times since he was ejected in Los Angeles earlier this season. Add Tiki to the list of aggravated spectators when it comes to the nature of sticky substance checks.
"It's nonsense. It's BS. It really is," Tiki said. "It frustrates me. We've seen this multiple times with New York pitchers. You can't have such a visible and consequential ejection process and not have it be objective. There's gotta be something they can do."
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