Carlos Correa, Astros Take Low Road in Fight with Dodgers

Carlos Correa, Astros Take the Low Road in Fight with Dodgers

Carlos Correa. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

The Houston Astros simply cannot seem to get out of their own way. The latest display of theater came from Astros' shortstop Carlos Correa.

Correa agreed to a lengthy interview with MLB Network’s Ken Rosenthal Saturday to respond to the criticism his team has received, most notably from Cody Bellinger. You can watch the whole thing here.

Bellinger asserted the Astros stole the 2017 World Series from the Dodgers. In a lot of ways, I agree with Bellinger, but I also believe the Dodgers had opportunities to win it themselves and simply didn’t capitalize. That’s a discussion for another post.

Anyway, Correa went through every World Series game the Astros won with Rosenthal and broke down each of his team's scoring opportunities. Correa contends his teammates couldn’t have stolen signs in real time because the majority of the times they scored there was a man on second base. The thought behind that is, the Dodgers would change and use multiple signs with a runner on second base, making it extremely difficult to decode. Thus, the Astros won fair and square. Everyone good with that?

Here are some of my many issues with that theory:

Commissioner Rob Manfred’s report on the sign-stealing scheme, which Houston loves to refer back to, clearly states they illegally stole signs throughout the 2017 regular season and postseason.

“Notwithstanding the publicity surrounding the Red Sox incident, and the September 15th (2017) memorandum that I sent to all Clubs, the Astros continued to both utilize the replay review room and the monitor located next to the dugout to decode signs for the remainder of the regular season and throughout the Postseason,” Manfred wrote.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, we believe what Correa's claim that the Astros played the 2017 World Series as clean as a whistle. If they cheated the whole way to get there does that even matter?

In other words, if they cheated during the seven-game American League Championship Series versus the Yankees, for example, are we to look at Houston differently because they all-of-a-sudden decided they were going to play the right way in the World Series?

I’ll answer my own rhetorical questions here and say, no, I don’t think it matters if they played the 2017 Series clean. But we all know, based on the commissioner's report alone, they cheated. Regardless, if it was half the regular season, just the postseason or at random points during the year, one could argue they shouldn’t have even been in the World Series to begin with.

So was the Series stolen? Maybe, maybe not. We may never get the full answer on that. But will the Astros always have a proverbial asterisk next to their championship in the record books? You better believe it. 

Jake Reiner is a native-Angeleno and is currently a sports and news reporter for KCBS/KCAL, Channels 2&9, where he has covered the Dodgers, Lakers, Chargers, and most recently traveled with the Rams for the entire season as the beat reporter for KCBS.