A juicy dilemma

The American League beat the National League in the MLB All-Star Game last night,  which is not really news because the American League always beats the National League in the Midsummer Classic, or at least every year in the memory of anyone who didn't actually see Ty Cobb or Honus Wagner play in person.

Here's what is news, though: The final score was 4-3.

Also, there were only two home runs.

This qualifies as a 100-year drought for baseball these days, given that baseballs are jumping out of ballparks like startled deer. An unprecedented eruption of going yard has forced  commissioner Rob Manfred to answer some hard questions about whether or not MLB is doing some funny stuff with the equipment, and this week raised the ire of Astros pitcher Justin Verlander, who claimed it's not even a question.

The ball, Verlander complained, is juiced. They've wound it tighter than Montgomery Burns' purse strings, and injected it with flubber or something similar.

Of course, this could just be dismissed as the sour whining of a pitcher who he can't keep the aforementioned ball out of the seats. But Verlander does have a point.

Check his own numbers: In the four seasons preceding 2016, he gave up 19, 19, 18 and 13 dingers respectively. In the three full seasons since, batters have taken him for a ride 30, 27 and 28 times, a significant jump. And in one of those years, he was the American League Cy Young winner.

And this year?

He's 10-4 with a 2.98 ERA, which is why he was in the AL lineup last night. But in just half a season, he's already surrendered 26 homers.

So either something funny's going on with the baseball, or something funny is going on in batters' bloodstreams again. You'd like to think we're not on the cusp of another Steroids Era, but given that PED testing has always lagged behind PED development ...

Well. Who knows what magic beans are out there now. And who knows how much more zealously baseball would react than it did in the late '90s, when the last great Launch Era helped save baseball, artificially enhanced or not.

Because what was true then is true now. Remember that old Nike ad?

Aggrieved pitchers Greg Maddux and Tom Glavine down the in the bullpen, shouting "Hey! We've got Cy Young winners here!" as Mark McGwire wows a couple of young women with one bomb after another in the batting cage.

Cut to Glavine and Maddux pumping iron and bulking up.

Cut to both of them launching bombs in the batting cage, as another young woman calls out "Hi, Tom!"

"Chicks dig the long ball," says Maddux, trading forearm bumps with Glavine.

Chicks and everyone else, it seems.

Hence Verlander's claim. And hence all those thorny questions for Rob Manfred.