CLEVELAND — After MLB in 2021 banned the use of foreign substances to doctor baseballs, James McCann went to the league offices in New York City to meet with MLB officials.

Since that 2021 ruling, pitchers have had access only to rosin — and are suspended for 10 games if they are caught using anything else — but he thinks pitchers need something to help them grip the baseball. He doesn’t want them to go back to the days of Spider Tack, which has been found to help pitchers generate more spin, but he thinks something such as combining sunscreen and rosin could help.

If pitchers had access to that, McCann thinks it could have prevented Jordan Westburg from being hit in the hand Wednesday or McCann himself from being hit in the nose by a 94.6 mph fastball on Monday. Heston Kjerstad also suffered a concussion this season after being hit in the head.

Westburg has a fractured hand and could be out for the rest of the season. McCann has a broken nose — one that won’t be reset until Monday — and a lot of swelling, but he is cleared to play. The Orioles have been hit by a pitch 47 times this season — 12th most in MLB and two more than they were hit all of last year with over two months to play.

“I think, in today’s games, there’s a lot of pitchers whose focus is throwing their best pitch at max velocity,” McCann said. “And you see guys just letting it go as hard as they can and letting it go where it goes. You talk to pitchers, a lot of them wish they had some sort of stick to be able to control it a little bit. The Spider Tack, that’s a different story. That’s taking an average pitch and making it above average. Sunscreen, rosin, something like that is not going to take an average pitcher and help him be an above-average pitcher, but I think it could help him have command to where those balls aren’t getting away from him.”

Another option could be pre-tacked balls, as they use in the Nippon Professional Baseball League in Japan and the Korean Baseball League. MLB tested this concept in the Arizona Fall League in 2016 and in 2019 Rawlings gave pitchers prototypes, but the feedback was not good.

“That would be the same concept as sunscreen rosin. Maybe that’s a little bit better of a way to control it because who knows how much sunscreen and rosin a guy is using, whereas if it’s a tacky ball it’s a tacky ball,” McCann said. “Most pitchers would sit here and tell you that they would feel better if they had that tackier substance to feel the baseball.”

Foreign substances have always been a part of baseball, but MLB until recently was relaxed in its enforcement, not issuing a suspension for six years leading up to the 2021 ruling. Now pitchers are checked multiple times a game and rosin is not allowed on the glove or the glove hand.

McCann said he doesn’t know what the answer is, but he hopes MLB will come to a solution to protect players.

“There’s no consequence for a guy getting drilled in the hand like Westburg or myself getting hit in the face,” McCann said. “I don’t think going back to letting guys throw at people is the way to go, but I do think there needs to be some steps taken to get this out of the game. We don’t need guys like Mookie Betts and Jordan Westburg getting knocked out for six-plus weeks in a season because a ball got away from a pitcher.”