Before the right-hander Ronel Blanco could even throw a warm-up pitch in the bottom of the 4th inning all the Umpires gathered on the right side of the pitchers mound inspecting the glove of the Astros starter. From there it did not take them long to throw him out of the game, without his glove.

The Umpires confiscated his glove for what appeared to be a sticky substance on the inside webbing. Blanco looked shocked, and multiple times motioned as if he was not hiding anything as the Umpires gathered on the Minute Maid Ballpark grass, but he was ultimately thrown out without argument from Blanco. It was hard to read his body language, I was not sure if he was not surprised, or if he is just that calm in his regular demeanor.

the consequences

Players who are thrown out of a game for a foreign substance are subject to an automatic 10 game suspension. As of this writing, MLB has not confirmed that was what Ronel was thrown out of the game for, but I would assume the announcement will be forthcoming.

Secondly, and possibly more damming, is that Houston can not replace any player who is banned for any kind of on-field rules violation. Therefore, they would be forced to play with a 25 man roster for the entirety of the length of the 10 game suspension.

Houston got off to an awful start, but are showing signs of life winning 3 in a row, 2 of them over the Oakland Athletics. Winning these games over the A’s are extremely important as Oakland is the next team they have to leap frog in the standings to go from 4th to 3rd place in the American League west. They currently trail them by only 2 games. As a side note, Chandler Rome of the Athletic reported that Blanco told reporters after the game, that if he is suspended, he plans on appealing that decision.

the good

I am not sure if you can ever say there is anything “good” that would come from a suspension, so I am grasping at straws here. But, the Astros have gotten 3 major starters back from injury in recent weeks; Framber Valdez, Justin Verlander and Christian Javier. Manager Joe Espada told reporters before last nights game that the Astros were going to go to a 6 man rotation. So, even with Blanco missing 10 days, it will be like a regular rotation and they will not have to make an unnecessary roster move to have a full rotation. The other 2 pitchers besides the three mentioned above and Blanco would be Hunter Brown and Spencer Arrighetti.

the bad

Ronel has been their best overall pitcher so far and losing him will be a blow to a team that as mentioned above was starting to get on a roll. The 30 year old no-hit the Blue Jays in his MLB debut and has had 6 strong starts since. With the 3 scoreless frames he threw against Oakland his season long ERA is now at 2.09 in his 47.1 innings of work. He has not allowed more than 3 runs in any start this season, and he was 1 out away from having a quality start in every game he has pitched this season, until his ejection of course.

As far as the pitching staff as a whole only Blanco, and the afore mentioned Brown and Arrighetti have made more than 5 starts for the Astros this season. The difference is, both Brown and Arrighetti have an ERA above 7.00.

We will have to wait and see how this affects Houston moving forward.

Stat and content credit; mlbtraderumors.com and MLB.com

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