Rob Thomson doesn’t suspect foul play from Framber Valdez in Game 2
As Framber Valdez was carving up the Phillies in Game 2 of the World Series, a different dissection was taking place in the Twitterverse.
Several videos circulated Saturday night of Valdez repeatedly wiping his hand on his uniform — including prior to a between-innings foreign substance check — and rubbing his fingers in the palm of his glove hand. Some viewers suspected Valdez of using “sticky stuff” against the Phillies, and allegations accelerated when Valdez changed his glove and cleats in the middle of the game.
Phillies manager Rob Thomson was asked by NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Jim Salisbury after the game whether the Phillies’ dugout noticed Valdez rubbing his hand. Thomson said they did and suggested that he and his team didn’t suspect foul play.
“Yeah, we did … It’s all over Twitter,” said Thomson, who never requested a check of Valdez during the game. “The umpires check these guys after almost every inning, and if there’s something going on, MLB will take care of it.
“We saw it the last time he started, too. So.”
A few things can be true at once. First, Valdez did seem to repeatedly go back to the same spots on his palm and hat throughout the game, something that pitchers using foreign substances in the past have also done. The second is that plenty of pitchers have acted similarly without using foreign substances; sweat helps pitchers get a better grip on the baseball and is, of course, perfectly legal. The mid-game cleat and glove change is also something Valdez has done before.
“Nobody should think of it as anything, like, in the wrong way,” Valdez said through an interpreter postgame. “I do it out in the open. Those are just all tendencies that I do throughout the game, maybe distract the hitter a little bit from what I’m doing.
“I’ve been doing it all season. Just tendencies in the Dominican, things that we do just to be able to stay loose.”
Valdez scattered four hits and one run (which scored after he departed) and struck out nine in 6 ⅓ innings in Game 2.
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