Joe Kelly torches Astros with NSFW comments after suspension

It literally does not get better than these Joe Kelly quotes about the Astros.

Thank goodness Dodgers pitcher Ross Stripling wasn’t traded this offseason to the Angels, like it seemed he would be. If not for the good fortune of the deal falling through, we may never have had the pleasure of hearing Joe Kelly spouting off on his teammate’s Big Swing Podcast, regaling us all with his true feelings about the cheating Houston Astros.

Kelly, not a member of the Dodgers back in 2017, but a Red Sox hurler who also lost to the illicit ’17 Astros in a postseason series that year, did not hold back when asked about the team he recently blew up social media by antagonizing.

Kelly on the field? A few brushbacks, a “boo hoo” lip at Carlos Correa, and the gift of the phrase, “Nice swing, bitch.”

Kelly off the field, enjoying a five-game suspension? An all-out quote bloodbath.

"“All they do is go snitch like a little bitch, and they don’t have to get fined, they don’t have to lose games,” Kelly said, regarding Houston’s “Get Out of Jail Free” card. “When you take someone’s livelihood … to save your own ass, that’s what I don’t like. Cheating? They cheated. Everyone knows they’re cheaters.”“They know they’re cheaters. It’s over. That’s been there, done that. But now, they mess it up by ruining other people’s lives, so they f*cked it up twice.”"

We would say those are fighting words, but been there, done that. In the age of social distancing, Kelly and Ramon Laureano have done a pretty great job of making sure the Astros never forget the wide-ranging effects of their f**k-up.

After all, they damn near brought down the whole league. It’s impossible to say how many players, executives, and coaches lost their careers because they couldn’t solve the Astros, who were skating along with digital stimulants the entire time.

You’re not going to believe it, but Kelly’s description of the events got even more colorful when he questioned why Carlos Correa was tapped so lightly, while he got the book thrown at him. Per Kelly, Correa did just about the most dangerous thing you can do during a pandemic fight: spitting at the dugout.

Kelly summed it up to Stripling by calling Astros’ actions “one of the worst things that you could probably do,” adding the dagger, “They’re not respectable men to me.”

Rob Manfred allowed this type of street justice to occur when he let the entire franchise waltz out of a prison cell simply for admitting they’d made a mockery of his game. MLB was kind enough to reduce Kelly’s suspension from eight to five games, but they probably should’ve made sure the downgrade came with a gag order.

Comments like these are going to matter way more in the long run than a few games off the diamond, as far as the continual fighting of this internal war goes.

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