The foreign substance check on Joe Musgrove in the Padres-Mets NL wild card series generated plenty of amusing reactions from the baseball world, including one from Yu Darvish.
Darvish, who frequently demonstrated a witty sense of humor during his three seasons with the Cubs, was asked how he would react if he were in Musgrove's position
“Anybody can come up and touch my ears, touch my nose, touch my wherever,” Darvish said through an interpreter Tuesday, flashing a slight smirk as the assembled media broke into laughter.
“I’m sure they had their reasons for doing what they did to Joe," Darvish added, per the Los Angeles Times. "I really don’t think too much about it.”
In case you missed it, Mets manager Buck Showalter asked the umpire crew to check Musgrove for sticky stuff Sunday, during the Padres starter’s dominant outing in Game 3 of the NL wild card series.
But it went beyond the typical inspection of a pitcher’s hand, belt, hat and glove. The umpire felt Musgrove’s ears — inside and out — with no evidence of sticky stuff.
Musgrove threw seven shutout innings, allowing just one hit and one walk.
If Darvish — who's set to start Game 2 of the NLDS Wednesday against the Dodgers — ever finds himself in a similarly bizarre situation, it sounds like he’ll be unbothered.
