Brandon McCarthy Accuses Joe Musgrove of Cheating, Rapidly Backtracks
The San Diego Padres and New York Mets are facing off in Game 3 of their MLB wild card series Sunday night and there was some controversy. Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove was dominating the Mets and his spin rates were up, so naturally the Mets, their fans and some on the Internet thought he was cheating. Include former big leaguer Brandon McCarthy in that group. But he quickly backtracked.
In the bottom of the sixth, Mets manager Buck Showalter asked umpires to check Musgrove's glove, hat and ears for sticky stuff. They obliged and apparently didn't find anything because they walked away without incident. Leading up to that check, McCarthy was leading the charge of people claiming Musgrove was definitely cheating.
Here's some of McCarthy's tweets going after Musgrove:
he's using something.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) October 10, 2022
from what I understand that's what everyone is doing now.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) October 10, 2022
that and team employees can see the data.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) October 10, 2022
After Musgrove was thoroughly checked and cleared by the umpires, McCarthy rapidly backtracked:
maybe he isn't using something. I don't know. I just saw the data and assumed. Looks like I was wrong. He's just continuing to dominate.
— Brandon McCarthy (@BMcCarthy32) October 10, 2022
I don't know, maybe have some hard facts and insight before accusing a guy of cheating in the middle of the performance of his life? Just a thought.
Andrew McCutchen weighed in with the likely explanation for what was going on with Musgrove's ears:
Here we go. I guarantee Musgrove has Red Hot on his ears. Pitchers use it as mechanism to stay locked in during games. It burns like crazy and IDK why some guys thinks it helps them but in no way is it “sticky.” Buck is smart tho. Could be trying to just throw him off.
— Andrew McCutchen (@TheCUTCH22) October 10, 2022
Before you ask, no, Red Hot is not sticky. It's slippery and would almost certainly decrease spin rates if someone applied it to a baseball. On top of that, Musgrove wasn't touching his ears during the game.
Eno Sarris weighed in and explained Musgrove's spin rates really weren't up dramatically.
Joe Musgrove s velocity is up a tick, and his four seam spin rate is too. These things are related. His spin per mph is up only a little, 27.6 to 28.0 rpm per mph.
— Eno Sarris (@enosarris) October 10, 2022
It appears it's just a case of a guy being really pumped up for a big start and delivering.