Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported Major League Baseball will soon begin cracking down on pitchers using illegal substances to help develop spin. As is usually the case, a bevy of articles on the topic will ensue. One of those people was Buster Olney.

Column: Rob Manfred must learn from baseball's mistakes of the past and affect serious discipline as the sport finally enforces the foreign-substance rule. https://t.co/gbXpiMQCL3 As it turns out, the first pitcher to be checked may be MLB's best pitcher, Jacob deGrom.

— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) June 15, 2021

Re-read that last line promoting the article. It says, “As it turns out, the first pitcher to be checked may be MLB’s best pitcher, Jacob deGrom.

Because ZERO context is provided for the reason wby, you let people’s imaginations run amok. Is MLB suspicious of deGrom? Is this based on velocity or spin rates? Are they doing it by team?

There are many plausible explanations, including what may be the real reason – deGrom is projected to start on the day MLB begins checking. However, you can’t get that from the tweet.

In all honesty, it’s difficult to discern from the article because it’s behind a paywall. Unless you pay for ESPN+, and it’s hard to discern why you would, you don’t know why Olney purposefully used deGrom to highlight MLB cracking down on cheating pitchers.

Keep in mind, if you go to probable starters that day, Gerrit Cole is also starting that day. This is the same Cole was was implicated for cheating many times over, and the same Cole who couldn’t answer a direct question on the topic.

Still, Olney opted to use deGrom who no one had suspected is cheating. He did it in a dishonest and sensationalist fashion to try to drum up interest in his article. Put another way Olney is using deGrom for his own benefit.

For implicating deGrom for his own gain, especially over those who have proof of their cheating, Olney owes deGrom an apology. As we’ve seen with Olney through the years, it won’t happen.