MLB's continued crusade against banned "sticky substances" took a weird turn Thursday afternoon, when umpire Adrian Johnson told Rays starter Zach Eflin to take his wedding ring off his glove hand before he continued pitching.
The mild-mannered Eflin acquiesced without a lot of protestation, and things proceeded as normal following the, frankly, weird interruption.
The Rays broadcast astutely pointed out that, although the ring was silicone and therefore it doesn't apply here, it's possible players aren't allowed to wear rings in case they're going to scuff up the balls with them to affect movement.
Umps made Zach Eflin take off his wedding ring pic.twitter.com/BGVmDMzgdF
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) May 4, 2023
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This, of course, comes on the heels of Max Scherzer's suspension for having an over-abundance of rosin in his glove. The conversation between Eflin and Johnson seemed far more cordial.
Ring or no ring, Eflin pitched well in what would be a 3-2 Rays win. He went seven innings and gave up three hits with no walks and 10 strikeouts.
10Ks, no walks?
— Tampa Bay Rays (@RaysBaseball) May 4, 2023
Pretttyyy pretttyyy Eflin good pic.twitter.com/8h9ZHIwido
The Rays signed Eflin to a three-year, $40 million contract this offseason, the richest free agency signing in Rays history. He had previously pitched for the Phillies in their World Series run last season.
The question now will be the consistency around this. Will Eflin simply leave the ring at his locker moving forward? Or will other umpires simply not care? There's no clear benefit to wearing it. So it could just be Johnson's preference for some bizarre unknown reason.
That seemed to be the case based on what Eflin told reporters after the game.
"It was the first crew that's really given me trouble about taking the ring off," Eflin said. "I've told every umpire that's asked me take it off I've said 'hey look I respect what you guys do but I'm gonna keep it on it's very important to me.' And most umpires are cool with it and they'll kinda let MLB take care of it if they need to. But this umpire crew was kind of a little different. They seemed a little on edge. But you know it's part of it. I said 'if you're gonna eject me out of the game I'll take it off' and that's what they ended up coming out and telling me out on the mound was that they're gonna toss me out of the game if I didn't take off my rubber ring. So I took it off."
Zach Eflin says the umpires gave him two options today:
— Bally Sports Sun: Rays (@BallyRays) May 4, 2023
1) Take off his wedding ring; or
2) Get ejected
So off came the ring. pic.twitter.com/cBpvNyVBbI
Eflin obviously preferred to stay in the game. But he didn't seem especially thrilled about being given an ultimatum by the crew.
