Coming to grips with the new rule

Kansas City manager Mike Matheny warned opponents that if they act like Philadelphia’s Joe Girardi and ask umpires to check Royals pitchers for sticky substances, it would provoke his team.

New York Yankees reliever Zack Britton and Nationals starter Max Scherzer, members of the players’ association’s executive subcommittee, called on Major League Baseball to end on-field checks by umpires and replace them with monitors who would conduct inspections in clubhouses, dugouts and bullpens.

“If I’m a young kid at the game and I’m asking my dad, ‘Well, hey, what’s going on? Why they getting checked?’ What he’s going to say? ‘Well, they think everyone’s cheating,” Britton said Wednesday. “I mean, is that what we want the game to be about, like we’re assuming you’re cheating? I just think it’s a bad look.”

On-field exams of pitchers started Monday, a week after baseball commissioner Rob

Manfred announced a crackdown on unauthorized grip substances. When umpire Alfonso Marquez approached Scherzer for a third time during Tuesday’s game, as requested by Girardi, the three-time Cy Young Award winner tossed his glove and hat to the ground, unbuckled his belt and appeared ready to take off his pants.

“I will say this: If somebody goes hunting for something on one of our guys, I’ll guarantee we’re going to have every guy on that bench and every other eye we can get on what might be happening. But that’s not a road I want to go down,” Matheny said Wednesday at Yankee Stadium. “Let’s let the umpires do what they’re told to do.”

When Oakland reliever Sergio Romo was checked by the umpires after pitching the seventh inning on Tuesday night, the veteran right-hander flung his belt onto the turf and dropped his trousers.

Britton said while the goal of eliminating sticky substances was laudable, the method of enforcement was hurtful.

“I just think the optics of it are so bad for baseball,” he said.