Yankees: 3 annoying Astros things you probably forgot about

HOUSTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 21: Carlos Gomez #30 of the Houston Astros takes a photographers camera and looks in the crowd at Minute Maid Park on September 21, 2015 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TX - SEPTEMBER 21: Carlos Gomez #30 of the Houston Astros takes a photographers camera and looks in the crowd at Minute Maid Park on September 21, 2015 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
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The Houston Astros are, and will always be, the enemy of the New York Yankees franchise, even after we all collectively “get over it.”

Why? They stole a ring from the rest of baseball. They blocked the Yankees’ potential best chance at a title in this current window — 2019, not 2017. Not only did they brazenly and blatantly cheat, but they continued to have the upper hand in the rivalry even after they supposedly abandoned those immoral strategies.

Even after the Astros were “clean,” they still stomped us, which makes it all the more infuriating.

Oh, and they also foisted the leader of their cheating scheme on the Boston Red Sox, Alex Cora, who only went on to definitely cheat in 2018, get caught doing it, somehow get off scot-free thanks to MLB deciding cheating was actually pretty OK, and then get rehired with zero personal long-term consequences.

But those are the annoying things the Astros did that you remember.

What about the ones you probably — almost definitely? — have forgotten by now?

After all, there’s been a cavalcade of Astros-related trash in need of a can since 2017. The “F***ing Glad We Got Osuna” thing. The weird verified fan accusing the Yankees of bringing a camera to the bleachers in 2018. Astros Twitter’s obsession with “unsealing the Yankees letter.” We’ve been through it all, and we need a shower.

These three moments, though, shed a light on the wide-ranging impact of everything that’s wrong with the Astros. The players are rotten. The team isn’t remorseful. And MLB facilitated a lot of what they wrought on the league.

When you’re booing Houston this week, make sure you remember these three things, which are all a part of the nasty aura of this franchise.

Yankees fans can’t forget these 3 Houston Astros offenses.

Alex Bregman #2 of the Houston Astros (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images)
Alex Bregman #2 of the Houston Astros (Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images) /

3. Alex Bregman Taunting a Random Fan

Ride with us, if you will, back to well before the 2017 playoffs, back when the Astros were just a blip on everyone’s radar. A cute little post-tank contender that was known for collapsing in the 2015 playoffs against the Kansas City Royals and very little else.

We miss those days, back when H-Town was several pieces away and appeared on the verge of an unsuccessful total rebuild. Dang. Wonder what changed? Oh, right, cheating.

Prior to the 2017 season, with Houston languishing behind the contenders without both Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander in the rotation, rumor had it the ‘Stros were eyeing a possible trade for Chris Sale while the White Sox were shopping him (that would’ve been … somethin’).

One lone fan theorized that Alex Bregman might be a nice centerpiece in a potential Sale trade. That fan didn’t tag Bregman. He didn’t target Bregman. He just said the name “Alex Bregman” on the famous website Twitter.com.

And that was more than enough for Bregman to find the fan, track him down, and hop into his DMs to yell at him.

“I forgot I shouldn’t give flees (sp) on the nutsack of society the time of day” should be an iconic quote, and it’s somewhat sad that we’ve let it dissolve into the annals of history.

At the time, Bregman had second-overall-pick pedigree and had batted .264 with eight homers in a 49-game cameo in 2016, and hadn’t yet been introduced to the team’s intricate 2017 cheating system. He was simply a bud yet to become an aggravating rose.

Ultimately, would life have been better for all of us if Sale had gone to Houston, Bregman ended up in Chicago, and the Red Sox still had Michael Kopech and Yoan Moncada? Eh, the correct thing probably happened. But it’s worth remembering that long before any sort of scandal, Bregman was the kind of guy who reacted so strongly to being included in idle trade rumors that he was going to track you down and make fun of your flees (again, sp).

Kris Medlen #47 of the Arizona Diamondbacks (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images)
Kris Medlen #47 of the Arizona Diamondbacks (Photo by Norm Hall/Getty Images) /

2. Astros Sent Kris Medlen Into Retirement

Plenty of ink has been spilled on Mike Bolsinger and his Astros-related lawsuit over the past few seasons, and it’s true that Houston’s bang-filled offense ended the pitcher’s marginal MLB career in illicit fashion.

Every time we talk about Bolsinger, though, we should also talk about Kris Medlen, the ex-Brave who fought for years to get back to MLB only to watch his flame get extinguished by Houston in one fell swoop.

Braves star Freddie Freeman certainly never forgot about his old buddy Medlen, and he shared the righty’s story when asked to address the Astros’ cheating scandal in the wake of the early 2020 revelations.

If that doesn’t get you, you don’t have an emotional bone in your body — or you reside in the cushy Houston suburbs, wake up at 10:30 am everyday and immediately take to Twitter to flame Joel Sherman or something equally boring.

Medlen was a force for the 2012 and 2013 Braves, posting a 10-1 record with a 1.57 ERA in ’12. Unfortunately, things sped downhill in 2014, when he left a spring training start with elbow soreness and was told he required a second Tommy John surgery, a rarity in the modern game, though something current Yankee Jameson Taillon has also dealt with.

Following the procedure, Medlen fought back to pitch solidly for the 2015 World Champion Royals, but eventually backslid, battled rotator cuff soreness, got non-tendered, and battled like hell to make the 2018 Arizona Diamondbacks call-up list, receiving one final opportunity to start against the Houston Astros.

To be fair to Houston (why), this game did not take place at Minute Maid Park. We’re still in the realm of not giving them credit for anything, though, and we still can’t endorse Medlen, after all that hard work, getting knocked around for seven runs in 4.0 innings against these bozos and then calling it a career.

Never forget the hard work other people put in between 2017-2020 that was completely undone by the Astros machine. Freeman certainly didn’t.

Carlos Gomez #30 of the Houston Astros (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
Carlos Gomez #30 of the Houston Astros (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images) /

1. Astros Were Literally Caught Cheating in 2018 and Nobody Cared

If you come away from this article remembering one thing (why would you, though?), remember this.

The Houston Astros can deny all they want that they cheated after the 2017 season. They can claim the buzzers are fake. They can claim that what they were “punished” for is the sum total of illicit things that happened.

However, a year and a half before anything came out about the team’s behavior in ’17, an SB Nation article was published midway through the 2018 playoffs detailing some strange actions from Astros employees and the growing suspicion that they were indeed behaving in unsavory fashion throughout the ’18 season.

“The Astros Have Been Cheating All Season, Maybe” is one hell of a 2018 headline that we’ve largely forgotten.

As Marc Normandin detailed above, an Astros employee with a camera was kicked out of the dugout area against the Red Sox in the ALCS. He claimed he was only trying to prevent the Red Sox from cheating (And, you know what? With Alex Cora’s presence in the other dugout … valid!).

Then, unfortunately for this fella, it came to light that the Cleveland Indians had complained about the same thing a round prior. And the A’s did so over the summer. And then Jeff Passan went to work.

Quoth Normandin:

MLB acknowledged that Astrogate* happened on Tuesday, but considered the matter closed. It doesn’t look closed, though: It turns out the Red Sox knew about this guy because the Cleveland Indians, who had lost to the Astros in the ALDS, tipped Boston off to him. Reportedly, multiple Astros employees were ejected by MLB security during Game 3 of the ALDS for similar behavior. *I’m comfortable using -gate here only because this involves spying and counterintelligence efforts And that’s when things unraveled. Jeff Passan revealed the name of this wannabe spy, Kyle MacLaughlin, as well as his connections to the Astros. He also dropped the bombshell that the A’s had complained to MLB about this behavior by the Astros back in late-August, and that there was an elaborate clapping setup in the Houston dugout to relay stolen signs to hitters.

Was this what got the ball rolling on Passan’s detective work, ultimately leading to the Mike Fiers revelations? Quite possibly!

Lost, somehow, in all our screaming about the Astros was that they behaved bizarrely throughout 2018, too, a season which they’ve been swearing up and down was completed cleanly. How have we all forgotten about this? Thank goodness, in retrospect, that Cora was over there in the other dugout cheating one step better than Houston.

Or, wait, maybe not. OK, yeah, wait, I’m actually angrier about that still. Yeah, 2017-2020 has been awful in every way. Sorry. My bad.

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