Toronto Blue Jays starting pitcher Alek Manoah seems to be very sure on who the biggest cheater in all of baseball is, and it’s not a player from the Houston Astros.
In a recent appearance with former NBA star Serge Ibaka on Sportsnet’s “How Hungry Are You”, Manoah was asked who he felt was the “worst cheater in baseball history”, and he wastd litle time naming Gerrit Cole.
Ibaka asked Manoah why he chose that name.
“He used a lot of sticky stuff to make his pitches better, and he kinda got called out on it,” Manoah said.
The crackdown on sticky substances began during the 2021 campaign, but then pitchers started finding a way to sneak them on their hands to help create more movement and have better control. That eventually led to umpires checking pitchers during outings.
Cole was a member of the Houston Astros, who were found to have infamously cheated during the 2017 season. He joined the Astros in 2018 and played two All-Star seasons with them.
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Cole is one of the pitchers the allegedly used stick stuff in the past to improve his pitchers. The Yankees ace didn’t concretely denied it.
“I don’t … I don’t know … I don’t quite know how to answer that, to be honest,” Cole said during a 2021 ESPN interview. “There are customs and practices that have been passed down from older players to younger players, from the last generation of players to this generation of players, and I think there are some things that are certainly out of bounds in that regard.”
Manoah and Cole hav history dating back to this past seaosn when he hit 2022 AL MVP Aaron Judge with a pitch in August and Cole jumped out from the dugout and appeared to be calling for his ejection. Manoah had some words for Cole after the game.
“I made a pitch, obviously it hit Judge,” Manoah said. “Obviously, I looked at him and I said, ‘Man, I’m not trying to do that.’ I think he understood that. I think if Gerrit wants to do something, he can walk past the Audi sign (in front of the Yankees dugout) next time.”
Cole said, “It was just one too many (dustings) for my taste.”
Cole finished second in Cy Young voting during the 2021 campaign, where he owned a 3.23 ERA over 181.1 innings with 243 strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Manoah tossed 196.2 innings in 2022 with a 2.24 ERA for his first career All-Star appearance.
