Early Monday morning, after the Red Sox 7-5 victory over the World Champion Houston Astros, a video surfaced that shows Matt Barnes repeatedly going to his non-throwing forearm after almost every pitch. The speculation has since been floated that Barnes was using an illegal substance, the video claiming it was pine tar. 

Let’s break down a few things first.

Pine Tar? Nah.

Pine tar would be incredibly visible from any vantage point in the dugout or behind home plate. In fact, when Michael Pineda was tossed out of Fenway Park for using Pine Tar illegally, it was as clear as day that he was in fact rubbing it on the ball.

Why? Because it’s brown and very visible. So Pine Tar might be out of the question here. 

A few more inches on the curveball…

For those of you who are team pine tar, there’s this little piece of interestign news. Matt Barnes loves the curveball, and threw it a ton in Game 2. 

It’s baseline baseball knowledge that doctoring a baseball gives the pitcher more control, more 

Something Barnes Does?

Reddit user “finnesskid40” pointed out the Barnes does this all the time. 

“I think it’s just something he does…here’s him doing it against the Yankees in ALDS game 4…here’s him doing it in ALCS game 1…here’s a random game in August where he does it.”

Is it Rosin?

This is probably the most likely of answers here. Most pitchers put some rosin on their non-pitching forearm. I mean, even Gerrit Cole, who started Game 2, does that.

So does this really matter? Are we making a mountain out of a mole hill? Potentially. Matt Barnes was the most used reliever for the Sox these past few games, so this could pull focus from a guy who has been very solid so far in this series. So there’s gonna be some doubt on those outings. 

The other thing this does it fans the flames of the “New England Cheats” fires. Which is always very cute, especially when the Astros are already heavily favored in the series. 

Then again, there’s also this….

But who are we to judge?