Joe Kelly Rips 'Snitch' Astros
A day after Joe Kelly had his suspension for throwing at Houston Astros hitters reduced, a podcast was published where the Los Angeles Dodgers reliever didn’t hold back in his criticism of the Astros.
In the “Big Swing Podcast,” hosted by Dodgers teammate Ross Stripling and Cooper Surles, Kelly dove deep on the fallout from the Astros sign-stealing scandal. The show had been previously recorded, but audio was held until Kelly’s appeal had been finalized.
Kelly, whose suspension was reduced from eight games to five, specifically took aim at Astros players who opted to ‘snitch’ to cover their own backsides.
“They're not the head boss in charge of that thing. It's the players. So now the players get the immunity, and all they do is go snitch like a little b---h, and they don't have to get fined, they don't have to lose games.”
When Major League Baseball conducted its investigation of the Astros for sign-stealing, players were granted immunity.
As such, no players received any punishment when MLB handed down their penalties in January 2020.
A total of four staffers lost their jobs in the wake of the scandal: Manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow from the Astros, and Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora and new New York Mets manager Carlos Beltran.
The latter two were previously Astros bench coaches during the 2017 season.
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Dodgers reliever Joe Kelly struck out Carlos Correa to end the sixth inning, stranding two Astros in scoring position. Kelly and Correa exchanged words afterward and the benches cleared as the teams hurled insults toward one another near home plate.
Those firings, or the way Astros players reacted to them, apparently didn’t sit well with Kelly.
"Maybe they have called [Cora] and said, 'Hey, I'm sorry.' Or called Luhnow and said, 'Hey, I'm sorry.' Or called Hinch, and Beltran. ... If they had said, 'Hey, I'm super-scared, I didn't know what to do, I didn't want to lose money, I had to rat.' ... Grow a pair of balls and say that."
Kelly had much more to say about the incident, including an explanation of the pouty face he made at Carlos Correa that went viral.
You can listen to the whole 40-plus minute interview above.