By Andy McCullough, Dennis Lin and Cody Stavenhagen

During the final weeks of the regular season, as New York Yankees reliever Luke Weaver spiraled into unreliability, he found himself confronting a time-honored baseball problem that has become more acute in the current era. He worried he was tipping his pitches.

Advertisement

When he took the mound, he admitted after Saturday night’s wretched outing in Game 1 of the American League Division Series, he worried “if I’m giving things away, if I’m doing things out of the ordinary that people are picking up on.” His thoughts became jumbled, which has hampered his effectiveness. And his concerns are not unfounded, Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake confirmed. In October, Blake explained, “there are more eyeballs on you.”

And what those eyeballs have increasingly been trained to do in the past few seasons is spot clues from pitchers. As the postseason continues, those within the game expect the discourse about pitch tipping to only increase. When Philadelphia Phillies reliever Matt Strahm served up a go-ahead home run to Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Teoscar Hernández in Game 1 of a National League Division Series on Saturday, Hernández’s teammate Andy Pages had raised his right arm moments before the pitch. Was Strahm tipping? Was Pages signaling the catcher’s location? Were the Dodgers simply bluffing? Either way, the ball landed in the seats, and the subject occupies the minds of pitchers across the sport.

“It’s always something you have to be worried about,” San Diego Padres starter Dylan Cease said. “And you never really can be 100 percent sure that it’s not going on.”

Interviews with players, coaches and executives provided several reasons for the widespread paranoia.