Rays' Hill: MLB's substance searches are 'dehumanizing'

Tampa Bay Rays left-hander Rich Hill is not a fan of Major League Baseball's new guidelines requiring pitchers to be searched by umpires for illegal substances.

"This is something that we need to come up with a better solution to," Hill said after Tampa's 8-2 win over the Boston Red Sox on Wednesday, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. "This is not baseball. This is not what people buy a ticket to come and see ... We don't want to turn baseball into Jerry Springer. That's all I'm saying.

"I think we've got to get back to the game itself and the great things that are going on with the game as opposed to being (subject to) unsolicited search."

The veteran starter said he found being searched in front of fans to be awkward, adding his peers feel the same way.

"I think everybody finds it, if you want to call the fact dehumanizing. I think that's one thing when you get searched in front of tens of thousands of fans. And it's not the umpire, this isn't on the umpire. this is being implemented by MLB."

Hill's comments follow incidences on Tuesday involving Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals and Sergio Romo of the Oakland Athletics, both of whom took exception to the procedure. In Romo's case, he dropped his pants in front of an umpire and over 19,000 fans at Globe Life Field.

Umpires began searching players on Monday.

Commissioner Rob Manfred said Wednesday he thought the process was going "very well" after two days of it being implemented.