Tanaka Says Japanese Pitchers Don't Use Pine Tar

Good possibility there is NOT pine tar under the bill of his cap there.

Michael Pineda was supposed to start for the New York Yankees today but is currently serving a 10 game suspension for using pine tar while pitching against the Red Sox for the second time this season. Obviously the talk all over ESPN and the sports media world will be about Pineda and pine tar specifically and unfortunately we will be no different here. Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka was asked by reporters from NJ.com what he thought about pitchers using foreign substances and pine tar and informed us that Japanese pitchers do not use pine tar while pitching, or any foreign substance.

"I obviously don't know every single pitcher," Tanaka said via his translator, Shingo Horie, on Friday. "But what I know is that most of the pitchers don't do anything when they go to the mound."

"And, plus, the thing is, Japanese (baseballs), they're smaller, you get a better grip on those balls than (the ones) out here," Tanaka said. "And the climate in Japan is moist. There's a lot of moisture in the air. So you don't need that."

And now you know, and knowing is half the battle.