Column: Sticky stuff should just be the start for baseball

The four Cubs pitchers were checked one by one as they left the mound Thursday night, and all passed inspection. Getting a grip on the baseball didn’t seem to be an issue at Dodger Stadium, where the visiting hurlers combined to throw the seventh no-hitter of the season in the major leagues.

Somehow, they managed to do it without hitting even one batter, laying to rest — for one night, at least — one of the lamest excuses offered up by pitchers desperate to keep putting sticky stuff on the ball. The idea that professional pitchers can’t control where the ball goes without super glue on it is about as preposterous as saying teams can’t get three outs in an inning without using a shift.

The same night in Florida, Boston pitchers took a no-hitter of their own into the eighth inning in a game the Red Sox would lose 1-0 to Tampa Bay. Professional hitters on both teams combined for a grand total of six hits while striking out 19 times.

And on Friday, Phillies pitcher Aaron Nola tied a major league record set 51 years ago by Tom Seaver by striking out 10 Mets in a row.

Not even a week into Rob Manfred’s crackdown on cheating pitchers, it's pretty much business as usual across the big leagues. Spin rates may be down a bit but little else seems to have changed other than the side show that unfolds every time an umpire approaches a pitcher to make sure nothing is being hidden.

Hitters are still swinging and missing. And, so far at least, no one has been decapitated by a pitch that got away.

Apparently the old standby of sweat and rosin works pretty well, too. Either that or pitchers have found a way to apply the sticky stuff and still manage to avoid detection.

Whatever, the crackdown on sticky substances isn’t the game changer pitchers claimed it would be — or, it seems, the...

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