CHICAGO – Two years ago, it was Giovanny Gallegos' hat. This time, it was rosin on his left arm.
It's just something about Gallegos and Chicago's South Side.
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Gallegos pitched the eighth inning in the St. Louis Cardinals' 3-0 victory over the White Sox on Saturday. But it wasn't exactly a routine outing.
It all started when plate umpire Lance Barrett saw Gallegos hit his left arm with the rosin bag after he warmed up. Barrett told Gallegos that was illegal and the umpire used a towel to clean off Gallegos' arm.
When the 31-year-old Gallegos did the same thing with two out in the inning, Barrett got a towel from the White Sox dugout and wiped down the reliever's arm again.
“They can do rosin on their throwing hand and arm, but not on their glove hand. And so any time we see a pitcher do that we just have him wipe it off and tell him he can’t do it,” crew chief Alfonso Marquez said.
“I don’t know if there was a language barrier or not. I’m not saying it was. But when he did it a second time, which has happened to us before, we just go out there and remind him, hey, you can’t do that.”
With bullpen catcher Kleininger Teran acting as his translator, Gallegos said Barrett visited the second time after someone yelled something from the home dugout. But Marquez said it had nothing to do with Chicago, and White Sox manager Pedro Grifol also said his team did not ask the umpires to check Gallegos.
“I didn’t really inquire about it. I knew what the umpire was doing,” Grifol said. "He wasn’t trying to doctor the ball or anything like that. It’s rosin. Umpire sees it on the arm, he can take it off if he wants to. I’m assuming. I don’t know or not. I didn’t go ask.”
After recording the final out of the eighth, Gallegos glared at the White Sox dugout as he made his way off the field. The right-hander also motioned as if he was cleaning off his arms.
Gallegos said through the translator that he went to the bag a second time “without knowing, without remembering. Something that everybody does, something normal.” He also said he had an issue with the second visit, especially in a game at the White Sox, and then motioned toward his head.
Gallegos was ordered by then-umpire Joe West to switch caps during the Cardinals' 4-0 victory at the White Sox on May 26, 2021. West said another umpire noticed a substance on the brim of the pitcher’s cap, and Gallegos told him it was sunscreen.
Thinking his player was unfairly singled out, then-Cardinals manager Mike Shildt got ejected during an animated argument.
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