Trailing the Padres 4-0 in the final game of the best-of-three series, the Mets apparently complained that San Diego pitcher Joe Musgrove was shutting them down with the help of a foreign substance to doctor the baseball.
The umpires convened, and after a short discussion, they approached Musgrove. Crew chief Alfonso Márquez informed Musgrove that he needed to check a few things: his hat, his hands, his face and — in the enduring image from the night — his ears.
“He checked it all. He found nothing. And I went back to work.”
“I mean I get it dude,” Musgrove said after the game.
“They’re on their last leg, they’re desperate. They’re doing everything they can to get me out of the game at that point. It is what it is.”
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“I’m not here to not hurt somebody’s feelings” – Showalter on the Joe Musgrove inspection
Talking about the incident in the post-match press conference, Showalter said,
“I’m charged with doing what’s best for the New York Mets.”
“If it makes me look however it makes me look, whatever, I’m going to do it every time and live with the consequences.
“I’m not here to not hurt somebody’s feelings. I’m going to do what’s best for our players and the New York Mets. I felt like that was best for us right now. There’s some pretty obvious reasons why it was necessary.”
Showalter didn’t elaborate much further than that, though he noted, “We certainly weren’t having much luck the way it was going, that’s for sure.”
Even if Showalter intended to throw Musgrove off his game, it didn’t work. The San Diego-area native became the first pitcher to throw seven scoreless while allowing just one hit in a winner-take-all postseason game.
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