Padres' Peavy denies cheating

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SAN DIEGO -- One day after limiting the Los Angeles Dodgers to two hits in a complete-game victory, San Diego Padres ace Jake Peavy denied that he had used an illegal foreign substance on his right hand to do so. Numerous message board posters on Dodgers fan sites raised questions regarding images seen on the nationally televised telecast that showed Peavy offering a post-game handshake with a dark substance on his thumb, index and middle fingers. Peavy explained before Sunday's 3-2 Dodgers win that it was dirt and rosin. "That's funny to me," Peavy said. "I mean, come on. How could you throw a baseball if that was anything but (dirt and rosin)? That makes me laugh, honestly. "If anybody wants to check me on anything I'm doing at any time, they can check me. I promise you that. It's not worth it. It's not worth it to cheat." San Diego manager Bud Black sided with Peavy, who is 2-0 with a 0.56 ERA in two starts this season. "I think what happens is when you play baseball, you get your hands dirty," he said, suggesting Peavy likely used dirt and rosin to legally sop up the sweat on his hand. Dodgers manager Joe Torre speculated that the substance "could be pine tar, could be dirt," but did not appear interested in taking the issue much further other than to keep it in mind. After all, Peavy wasn't the only pitcher who shut down the Dodgers offense last week as Los Angeles is hitting just .229 as a team with 20 runs scored in its first six games. "If I start making a big deal of this, all of a sudden I'm saying to my players, 'Well this is the reason you didn't get any hits,' " Torre said. "It's like accusing someone of throwing a spit ball. Well, hit the dry side. I just don't want to fall into finding an excuse for why we didn't win."(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)