Red Sox fans crying about Bobby Witt Jr. 'cheating' at home is beyond rich

Fans of the Boston Red Sox, the franchise that hired, fired (as a PR strike), re-hired, and extended a manager accused of cheating with two different MLB franchises, are upset about Bobby Witt Jr.'s home-road splits. After losing only one of three games of a difficult road showdown, gaining on a playoff spot in the process. One loss! Alert the presses!

It's really a shame that I, a Yankees fan, found out about Witt Jr.'s remarkable home numbers from a bunch of Bostonians. After all, the emerging Royals legend is poised to battle it out for American League MVP honors this season with Aaron Judge. If these statistics had come to me through non-Boston means, I would've written a column advocating for Judge and disqualifying Witt Jr. on account of some form of bizarre middle-American barbecue voodoo.

Alas, the concept of Red Sox fans, of all people, getting concerned overnight about cheating because they lost a single game was too rich to ignore. Had to stare at it for 25-30 minutes like a solar eclipse.

Ultimately, it will be very damaging that I used so much time in my singular life to look at this, but in the moment, it was very rewarding.

Red Sox fans comparing Bobby Witt Jr. to Astros cheating scandal (which their manager invented) is too rich

Sure. It's wild that Witt Jr. has a 1.150 OPS at home and a .790 mark on the road. We'll grant you that. But a near-.800 OPS on the road is nothing to scoff at, and we'd be lying if we told you that Judge himself never had similar splits (in 2018, he had a road OPS of .688 and a home mark of 1.170, using the stadium's dimensions to perfection).

But derisively equating your opponent's success to something fishy by comparing it to "what the Astros did" when your beloved manager built what the Astros did is truly a next-level lack of self-awareness. Even in jest.

Alex Cora, in conjunction with Carlos Beltran, was purportedly the driving force behind the scheme the Astros concocted to steal signs in real time using primitive bangs and a hidden monitor. In the wake of his team's "success," he brazenly bragged about stealing a title from the Dodgers, persisting remorse-free. Cora, in the wake of being found out, tried to foist the blame on others, claiming Houston's scheme was "more than just a two-man show." Notably, though, he never denied being one of those two men.

When the full scope of what led to the Astros' scandalous ring emerged, Cora was dismissed from his post in Boston. That firing was, purportedly, based entirely on his transgressions in Houston. Boston didn't much care about his illicit use of the video room during the team's thoroughly dominant 108-win season and World Series title in 2018. Winning two World Series back-to-back is impressive enough. Two tainted World Series in a row? That can only be the work of one man: fired video coordinator JT Watkins. Oh, and also Cora.

Cora and AJ Hinch were both dismissed from their posts after Ken Rosenthal and Evan Drellich's bombshell investigation dropped. Hinch had to crawl his way back to Detroit to get redemption. Cora? No harm, no foul, no morality in Boston; he was welcomed back to his position with open arms after a 60-game vacation during the COVID season. And now, on the verge of departing at the end of the season for a bigger free agent payday, he's instead stunned the masses by signing an extension in Boston.

Huh. Wonder if both parties knew too much about the other to ever end the marriage. Surely, if anything nefarious is going on with Bobby Witt Jr., there's no better man to get to the bottom of it than Boston's favorite leader, posted up eternally in their dugout concocting his next powerhouse method for breaking the rules.

Celebrating cheating is one thing. Boston did it for two decades under Bill Belichick. But admonishing others for doing the type of scheme work you people regularly dream of and reward? Deeply, impressively sniveling.