More than three months after suspensions were levied regarding the Houston Astros’ 2017 sign-stealing scandal, results of a similar investigation into the Boston Red Sox still have not been announced.
Multiple members of the 2018 Red Sox have come out this week to express doubts that the probe will reveal violations as substantial as those by the Astros, which triggered the eventual firings of Sox manager Alex Cora, Mets manager Carlos Beltran and Houston manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow.
One day after 2018 World Series MVP Steve Pearce called the MLB investigation “such a joke,” former reliever Joe Kelly chose an even strong descriptor.
“The whole thing is a debacle to me,” Kelly said while watching a replay of Game 3 of the 2018 World Series on WEEI. “Now sitting at this point with no baseball being played and no results on an investigation, I just feel like, ‘Was I dreaming? Is there actually an investigation? It’s like the “Boogeyman” series, what’s the deal with this thing?’
“From the get-go I just thought it was laugh-out-loud funny. Now that this is the last thing on people’s mind obviously with how the world is right now, whenever the investigation is done, I’m interested in seeing what is in the investigation.”
Commissioner Rob Manfred has said MLB has concluded its investigation into the Red Sox for allegedly using illegal electronics to steal signs, but the findings will not be released until baseball can resume play following the coronavirus pandemic.
“If there is cheating involved with how good our team was, we should have won every single out,” said Kelly, who now pitches for the Dodgers — the team Boston beat in five games in that Fall Classic.
“We should have not even lost an inning if there was some good cheating involved, which would have been a lot more fun because we would have won in four. We would have swept through the playoffs and made it really, really fast and been able to go to Hawaii or go to Mexico and go on vacation a lot sooner than we did.”
On Tuesday, during a replay of Game 1 of the ’18 Fall Classic also on WEEI, Pearce had offered similar thoughts on the allegations.
“That’s such a joke to us,” Pearce said. “When it came out, we were all kind of joking about it. We just want this to pass us. We won it fair and square. Whatever they accused us of, we were all kind of like, ‘I can’t believe this is even an issue.’ Once the report comes out, we’re all going to be free.
“You don’t like it, especially that we were the champions and individually I have that award. And we have this floating over our head when we just had such an unbelievable season. We had the perfect team and great camaraderie with everybody and then this gets thrown out here. We’re just like, ‘What the heck?’ We just want this to pass us. We just want to play some baseball. Another bump in the road, I guess.”