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Mets closer Edwin Díaz suspended for 10 games after being sent off Sunday for a sticky substance

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New York Mets closer Edwin Díaz was ejected on Sunday before throwing a pitch after umpires found he had a banned sticky substance on his hand, and on Monday MLB imposed a 10-game suspension.

The Mets had brought Díaz into the game to protect a 5-2 lead in the ninth inning, but second base umpire Brian Walsh didn’t like what he saw during the routine hand check when a reliever enters the game. After a tense back-and-forth with Díaz and Mets manager Carlos Mendoza, crew chief Vic Carapazza ejected the pitcher.

A close-up clearly showed a substance on Díaz’s hand.

After the game, Díaz insisted that he had done nothing wrong.

“I always use the same one,” Díaz said. via ESPN. “I rub rosin, sweat, and put my hand in the dirt a little bit because I need some grip on the ball. So that’s what I explained to them. But they said it was too much stickiness. I understood that, but at the end of the day I used rosin, sweat, and put my hand in the dirt.”

However, Carapazza did not accept this argument.

“It definitely wasn’t rosin and sweat,” Carapazza said after the game. via Jesse Rogers from ESPN. “We checked thousands of them. I know the feeling. It was very tricky.”

The Mets confirmed Tuesday that Díaz will not appeal his suspension.

“We want to move on from this,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said via ESPN. “We don’t want this cloud to hang over the team for too long. And we decided it was the best thing to do.”

After Díaz’s ejection, Mendoza brought in reliever Drew Smith for the ninth inning. Smith got the first two outs before allowing a single to Cubs shortstop Dansby Swanson. Mendoza then brought in Jake Diekman, who ended the game with a strikeout of Patrick Wisdom. The final score was 5-2.

While it was Díaz’s first ejection of the season, it’s not the first time things have gone wrong since entering the game. The $102 million man has a 4.70 ERA this season, with four blown saves in 11 opportunities, and he was both demoted from the closer role and placed on the injured list with a shoulder injury.

Since returning from the injury list, Díaz had kept three consecutive clean sheets for the first time since April 4, but now he faces another setback.

This is Díaz’s first season back after missing the entire 2023 season due to a torn patellar tendon sustained in the World Baseball Classic. After this season, his contract with the Mets will expire for only one season, with a salary of $21.5 million, but he has player options for 2025 and 2026, each worth $18.5 million.

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