Yankees ‘trying to stay vigilant’ days after SECOND pitcher was nearly tossed for doctoring balls

The Yankees are keeping a close eye on their use of tacky fabrics after nearly losing a second pitcher to suspension in the same week.

On Tuesday, Domingo German was sent off and subsequently suspended for 10 games after being deemed by referees to have an excessive amount of rosin – which is legal to some extent – in his hand.

And the same result almost happened to German teammate Clarke Schmidt on Friday, as the starter was also checked for the use of a foreign substance.

Schmidt, who lasted five innings for New York on Friday in a 6-2 victory, was lucky to escape an ejection as he was allowed to wash his wrist off.

While the judge said his hand was soiled by a combination of black fur on the inside of his glove, sweat and resin – which is allowed at the discretion of the umpire – the Yankees are now on high alert for further punishment for their pitchers.

The right-hander retired all nine Blue Jays batters on 37 pitches for the fourth

“We’re trying to stay vigilant on it as much as possible,” pitching coach Matt Blake said over the weekend, according to the NY Post.

And, “Hey, we don’t have a margin of error here, guys. Zero margin. So whatever we think the line is, you have to be 10 steps away from it.”

Pitchers often use agents such as rosin to increase their grip on the ball, and MLB said in a March memo that it could be considered a “prohibited foreign substance … when used in excess or otherwise improperly applied (i.e., on gloves or other parts of the uniform).’

That means players are subject to what can be vastly different interpretations of the rule by different umpires, with Tuesday’s team chief James Hoye deeming German’s hand the “stickiest I’ve ever felt” last week.

German and Max Scherzer of the Mets are the only pitchers suspended this season for using a foreign substance, while German’s teammate Gerrit Cole was also charged with using a sticky substance last season.

“The moment I looked at his hand, it was extremely shiny and extremely tacky,” Hoye told a pool reporter after the Yankees defeated Toronto 6-3 on Tuesday night.

“It’s the stickiest hand I’ve ever felt. It was hard for my fingers to come off his palm.’

Blake found the stickiness rules difficult to follow.

“That’s the hard part — there really isn’t a line in the sand, it’s just kind of subjective, like, ‘I think this is tacky,'” he said.

German was intercepted by the umpires as he took the mound for the fourth inning

“If German gets kicked out, I get it, they said, ‘That’s the stickiest hand they’ve ever felt.’ Well, which is the second stickiest or the third stickiest? It’s like, where does the line start coming down?

Hoye also claimed that the substance on German’s hand was not rosin, which the pitcher denied.

“It was definitely just the rosin bag,” German said through an interpreter. “It was sweat and the resin bag. I don’t need any extra help to grab the baseball.”

After Germany’s suspension – and Schmidt’s near-ban – the Yankees will be much less lassiez-faire with their pitchers’ use of resources.

“Especially when we have cases with German, who try to control him, like, ‘That’s too much, you have to take something off,'” Blake said.

“Just realize that the resin builds up as the game goes on, so you need to take something off.”