Tampa Bay Rays' Joel Peralta Suspended Eight Games For Pine Tar On Glove In Game vs Washington Nationals.

In talking about the incident involving Tampa Bay Rays' reliever Joel Peralta during Tuesday night's game, Washington Nationals' manager Davey Johnson told reporters on Wednesday that he thought the possible punishment the pitcher might face was too severe. The Nats' skipper used inside information provided by one of Peralta's old teammates or coaches from the year he pitched in D.C. in 2010 to get the pitcher removed from the game before he'd even thrown a pitch in the eighth inning of the series opener. The Nationals knew that the right-hander tended to keep a little too much pine tar inside his glove and they called him on it when he took the mound Tuesday night. Home plate ump Tim Tschida examined Peralta's glove and then confiscated it before ejecting the pitcher. The glove was then sent to Major League Baseball for examination and this afternoon MLB handed down their judgment.

Peralta was suspended for eight games for, "... possessing a foreign substance on his glove prior to the bottom of the eighth inning of his Club’s Tuesday, June 19th game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park," as a press release this afternoon announced. The pitcher has filed an appeal, so, "... the discipline issued to him will be held in abeyance until the appeal process is complete."

Davey Johnson told reporters Wednesday night that he thought Peralta's ejection Tuesday night was more than enough punishment. "The only thing that I do think when I was watching some of the tube," Johnson said, "Is I do think there can be a suspension up to 10 games. I think that's way too severe. I think just getting thrown out of the game should be enough. Repeat violators, then I can see something more severe.

MLB disagreed. And Rays' manager Joe Maddon's probably angrier than he was Tuesday night when he spoke to reporters after the game and called the Nationals' move cowardly.