NEW YORK – With a small nod of his neck as he extended his lead at second base, Josh Rojas appeared to signal to his Mariners teammate Dylan Moore that a cutter was coming from Yankees pitcher Clarke Schmidt.
Moore sent the 93.1 mph pitch 386 feet into the left field seats for a 2-0 lead that helped Seattle to a 6-3 victory over New York on Tuesday night.
“Everyone is always trying to find something,” Rojas said Wednesday. “We're out there trying to find anything to give us an advantage.”
MLB Network showed a frame-by-frame comparison of Schmidt in set position with Moore at the plate in the third inning. Rojas could not see a ball before a sinker, only a small portion before a sweeper and a significant portion before a cutter.
Moore fouled out Schmidt's first full-count pitch, a sweeper, before the right-hander came back with a cutter.
“You can see in the video that he clearly tipped,” Rojas said.
Editor favorites
Schmidt, 28, said after the game that the Yankees were aware of the typo and took immediate action to ensure it didn't happen again.
“Obviously, tipping is a part of this game and a factor that we always have in the back of our minds and are aware of,” Schmidt said. “They scored two runs. But I was able to make adjustments after we saw the video and it was just part of the game. Another factor in it.”
Schmidt said tipping has been a problem for him in the past.
“It's just something that we're constantly paying attention to and working on with all of our guys,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Mariners manager Scott Servais, a major league catcher from 1991 to 2001, said technology has forced teams to be more vigilant when tipping.
“You didn’t have all the cameras and all the people working in the front offices. It was actually a learned skill,” Servais said. “On the days you didn’t play, you were just focused on that pitcher. Where is he coming from? When does his hand go into his glove? Where are his eyes? Does he bite his lip when he throws his slider?' All kinds of things happen, and these days you just sit there and stare at the guy until you try to figure it out for yourself.
When asked who was best at accepting tips, Servais referred to his own experiences.
“Experienced players who didn’t play much – like me – knew what to look for,” he said. “I always thought catchers had a good feel for it because they all knew every pitcher did something different.”
Rojas said figuring out pitch tips is “a pretty common thing.”
“Even if you have something, it’s still pretty hard to get a hit,” he said.
With Major League Baseball's approval of the PitchCom device for communication between pitchers and catchers in 2022, catchers signaling pitchers have been largely eliminated – and the ability of runners at second to recognize those signals has been largely eliminated. This leads to runners focusing on the pitchers.
“Now it's just a game of trying to find little things like that that give you insight,” Rojas said.
