Mets' Max Scherzer on Ejection: I'd Be 'Absolute Idiot' to Use Substance After Check

New York Mets ace Max Scherzer was ejected from Wednesday's 5-3 win over the Los Angeles Dodgers after he was checked multiple times in the game for potential sticky substances.

Scherzer said he would "have to be an absolute idiot" to cheat or use a banned substance after checks in the second and third innings:

"I said, 'I swear on my kids' life, I'm not using anything else,'" he told reporters when asked what the umpires had said to him. "'This is sweat and rosin. Sweat and rosin.' I keep saying it over and over, and they touch my hand and say it's sticky. Yes it is, because it's sweat and rosin."

If Major League Baseball finds that Scherzer was using sticky substances in an illegal way, he is facing a 10-game suspension.

"MLB standards and rules enforcement should mandate and require an objective verifiable standard," Scherzer's agent, Scott Boras, said in a statement after the game. "If you want to attack the integrity of the competition you need clear precise standards, else you damage the game and it players. The Cuzzi on-field spectrometer is not the answer. MLB needs to employ available scientific methods (not subjective) to create verifiable certainty of its rules."

Scherzer told reporters that he and home-plate umpire Dan Bellino met for a routine substance check in the middle of the second inning and that his hand was "a little clumpy" from rosin and sweat. Crew chief Phil Cuzzi then told him to wash off, which he did.

Scherzer said he washed his hands with alcohol but mixed with rosin it was still too sticky, and he was asked to re-wash them, which he did. He then was asked in the middle of the third to switch gloves because the one he was using had too much rosin on it, and he made the change.

He said he knew he was going to be checked again in the fourth inning, which he was, and that he used alcohol on his hand in front of an MLB official before applying rosin and sweat. His hand was still deemed to be too sticky, however.

"I don't get how I'm ejected when I'm in front of an MLB official, doing exactly—exactly—what you want, and it's deemed my hands too sticky when I'm using legal substances," Scherzer told reporters. "I do not understand that."