Scientists Might Soon Have an Answer About MLB's Juiced Balls

One of the main MLB storylines this season is the amount of home runs being hit. MLB is on pace for more than 6,700 home runs, which would be 1,100 more than a year ago and 600 more than the record that was set in 2017.

Chicks may dig the long ball, but something fishy is going on and everyone is saying that the balls are juiced.

To their credit, MLB is trying to figure out what had led to the increase in home runs, which is why you have scientists, specifically Washington State University professor Lloyd Smith, testing the balls to see why there's a massive increase in long balls.

“The smoking gun may very well have been found,’’ said Alan Nathan, chairman of a committee of scientists that includes Smith and was formed by MLB in August 2017. “As I told Lloyd, ‘You’re going to be a big hero for doing this.’ ”

It still might be a matter of weeks until MLB commissioner Rob Manfred releases the findings of this research, but it's a great sign that we are close to finding out why the home run increase has happened.

“We’ve notified MLB of our progress and their answer has been, 'That’s great, but we can’t get this wrong.’ So we need to test more balls," Smith said. "So far we are at about 80 dozen balls that we’re testing over different areas of the game to see if we’re right, how right we are and if everything adds up.’’

Yeah, they can't get this wrong. All players and fans want to know is if the balls are juiced and if they were altered on purpose, and it appears we are close to getting that answer.