WASHINGTON — Mere days after accusing a Sports Illustrated reporter of fabricating details of a story in which Houston assistant GM Brandon Taubman yelled support for Astros closer Roberto Osuna directly at a female reporter who had been critical of the pitcher, the Astros have fired the executive and apologized.
“Our initial investigation led us to believe the inappropriate comments” … “were not directed to any specific reporter,” said a statement from the team. “We were wrong.” The team apologized to the reporter, Stephanie Apstein, whose report it initially characterized as “misleading and completely irresponsible.”
Taubman, after the Astros won the ALCS, shouted “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so (expletive) glad we got Osuna!,” several times, in the direction of three female reporters in the clubhouse. One of them had written critically of the Astros’ decision to acquire Osuna from the Toronto Blue Jays last year. The pitcher was serving a 75-game suspension at the time. Accused of attacking the mother of his child in Toronto, charges were dropped when the woman, who had gone home to Mexico, said she would not take part in any prosecution.
The contrite statement from the team on Thursday said that it was “misinformed” when it first looked into what had happened in the clubhouse.
Taubman originally insisted that he was merely showing support for Osuna in the face of tough questions. The Houston closer had blown a save in the ninth-inning of Game 6, which the Astros went on to win.
Jeff Luhnow, Houston’s GM, addressed the whole affair at Nationals Park on Thursday night, and it was like trying to douse a fire with gasoline.
“It was wrong, and we own it as an organization,” he said of the initial response to Apstein’s story.
But asked who approved the response, who signed off on a statement that essentially called Sports Illustrated a fraud, Luhnow only meekly offered that “I’m not going to get into the details.”
The GM said they originally were led to believe that Taubman was overhead talking to another Astros employee, but the team later learned that he directed his comments at the reporters.
“I know you want more, but I can’t really give you more,” he said.
Luhnow would not comment on whether other organizational fallout could yet come.
Here is a bet: Yes.
The return of small ball
After another regular season in which analytically-minded teams and coaches have generally eschewed quaint notions like the bunt, small ball is making a comeback in the postseason.
In the seventh inning of Game 2, with the Nationals up by just a run, Washington manager Dave Martinez ordered Adam Eaton to drop down a bunt with runners at first and second. Eaton did so, the runners advanced, and then Houston manager A.J. Hinch called for an intentional walk to Juan Soto to load the bases.
All of a sudden it was the 1980s again, when it was possible for something other than a walk, strikeout or home run to happen during an at-bat. Cyndi Lauper music rang out, fluorescent clothing was all the rage, and Eddie Murphy told highly offensive jokes that people didn’t even get upset about. OK, none of that happened, but there was a bunt and an intentional walk.
It was the first time all season that Hinch had called for an intentional pass, a sign of how much baseball thinking has changed — baserunners are to be prevented in all but the most extreme circumstances.
Soto, who is mashing during these playoffs, was just such a circumstance.
“I’ve watched Soto just like you have,” Hinch said, asked why he put Soto on base, where he would eventually be one of six Nats to score in an inning that blew Game 2 open. “We have seen the downside of (intentional walks),” he said. “Clearly, I think there’s a lot of downside given that I haven’t done it all year.”
“But, ironically I thought it was our best chance to limit their scoring, and instead it poured gasoline on a fire that was already burning.”
Hinch was asked if that was the first time he had even considered an intentional walk this season.
“No, no, we have Mike Trout in our division, and we faced Christian Yelich,” Hinch said of a pair of recent MVPs. Yelich was in Houston on Wednesday, he noted. “So maybe that’s what talked me into it.”
Contact pays off
That big seventh-inning rally included a bunch of two-strike hits, something that has been a huge part of Washington’s eight-game playoff winning streak. Again, that’s something that is counter to recent baseball trends, where record strikeout totals have been posted in each of the past two seasons. It has become common wisdom that strikeouts are just outs, but don’t tell Martinez that. “I’m not a fan of strikeouts,” he said on Thursday at Nationals Park. “And I don’t like it. We talked about it and I wanted these guys to understand that putting the ball in play with two strikes, regardless if you get a hit or not, is huge because anything can happen. The only thing that happens when you strike out is you put your head down, you walk to the dugout and put your bat in the bat rack. That doesn’t do anybody good.”
Also, you feel sad.
Hinch happened to agree, at least in reference to that big inning. “Contact is your friend in those situations,” he said.
The Nationals had the fourth-fewest strikeouts in the majors this past season. The Astros had the fewest.
COMMISH: SAME Balls!
The record home-run totals of 2019 were due at least in part to a much livelier baseball. This wasn’t just a conspiracy theory put forward by beleaguered pitchers, but one supported by actual science: The ball is smoother, with lower seams, which led to reduced drag on it and therefore a longer flight. MLB has convened panels to study how this happened. But the balls thrown (and hit) in the postseason have been shown to have more resistance in the air — more drag, that is — and have brought questions about whether MLB decided to effectively de-juice the pellets. Commissioner Rob Manfred is having none of it: “I can tell you one thing for absolute certain,” he said before the series shifted to Washington. “Just like every other year, the baseballs that were used in the postseason were selected from lots that were used in the regular season. There was no difference in those baseballs.”
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October 25, 2019 at 07:11AM
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