Yankees fans will love Ex-Astros GM Jeff Luhnow going after Red Sox for pathetic punishment

Yankees fans have a new ally. Ex-Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, welcome to the Red Sox Resistance.

Unfortunately, Yankees fans were forced to do an about-face on Wednesday and embrace (shudders) former Astros GM Jeff Luhnow, who was dismissed before the 2020 season as a figurehead of Houston’s innovative and rampant cheating.

But hey, any enemy of the chronically under-punished Red Sox is a friend of ours!

Unlike his former manager AJ Hinch or since-promoted bench coach Alex Cora, Luhnow has been completely run out of the game of baseball since the cheating scandal broke. Houston has been largely singled out as the “home of cheating” in Major League Baseball, whereas the Red Sox have managed to pin the lion’s share of the blame on Astros Alex Cora, pretending he’s a different person than the man they hired.

Heck, even video room operator JT Watkins, the low-level scapegoat in the 2018 Red Sox investigation, was re-hired this week as a scout with the organization. That leaves Luhnow on the outs, observing the Sox cheating in both 2017 (Apple Watches) and ’18 while sliding back into a redemption tour, and he’s not prepared to accept that.

As Luhnow so eloquently put it:

"“They were caught twice— they were caught in 2017, and then they were caught again in 2018 — and that’s recidivism. I don’t hear anybody asking how the front office there could not know. The only people that got punished were a video person, and they pretty much let everybody else off the hook, so it doesn’t pass the sniff test for me or for a lot of baseball fans as well.”"

Thank you, Mr. Luhnow, for asking the question Yankees fans have been begging to have answered for months. Not only did the Sox get caught once — it was twice! They lost a second-round pick, and allowed Cora to walk back to his post after essentially taking a 60-game vacation.

Make it make sense.

Cora, of course, got the chance to explain himself during his “introductory” press conference on Tuesday, and it surely made Luhnow laugh right along with Yankees Universe.

Yes, Cora’s official take in front of the ready-to-be-pleased Boston media was, “I never cheated with the Red Sox — and you have to believe me — because their roster was too good to cheat.”

For reference, the 2016 Astros, prior to the year they exploded onto the landscape, were 84-78, but one year beyond a ’15 ALDS appearance, 86-76 record, and the near-elimination of the World Champion Royals in the first round. The 2016-17 Red Sox? Two-time AL East champs, but winners of a combined one playoff game. Both were middling non-contenders, and both took explosive leaps under Cora.

93 wins for the 2017 Red Sox, 108 wins for the 2018 Red Sox, no roster changes. Luhnow, as much as we despise having to believe him, makes a good point.

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