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Former Dodgers All-Star closer brings up Astros cheating scandal with sour comments

Ex-Dodgers All-Star stirs pot with Astros cheating scandal comments
Eric Cole
Eric Cole

Climbing Tal's Hill

Texas Rangers v Los Angeles Angels / Jayne Kamin-Oncea/GettyImages

One can understand why there are a number of teams (and their fans) who still have hard feelings towards the Houston Astros stemming from the 2017 sign-stealing scandal. No one likes to feel cheated, and at the end of the day, what the Astros did was wrong, and they got punished for it. However, there is no amount of penance Houston could pay to satisfy some people, and that seemingly includes former Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen.

Jansen has put together a stellar career that will warrant real consideration for the Hall of Fame one day. Back in 2017 (the year of the scandal), Jansen put together arguably the best season of his career with a 1.32 ERA and finished fifth in the NL Cy Young voting.

However, when he appeared on one of Jomboy Media's shows, he made it clear that the only team that could hit him that year was the Astros and heavily implied that it was only because they cheated.

Kenley Jansen is not ready to let the Astros' sign stealing scandal go

Look, if any of us played in a World Series, lost a tight series, and then it came out that the winner had cheated not only during that postseason but for the whole year, we would all be salty about it. Jansen has strong feelings about it, and he is entitled. It isn't the first time Jansen has shown his displeasure and, if we are being honest, it won't be the last.

That said, we are pretty long ways removed from the scandal, and that Jansen decided to take a shot at Houston all this time later is just kind of sad. Again, you were great, and you think you should have a ring. Got it. Have anything else to add to the conversation? No? We didn't think so.

Again, this isn't a situation where the Astros "got away" with it. They were severely punished for what happened, as they should have been, and the result was a farm system that STILL hasn't recovered from the loss of draft picks. You are welcome to be mad about it, but let's stop pretending that this Houston team has to continue to bend the knee.

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Eric Cole

Eric Cole

I started my career writing about baseball covering the Atlanta Braves for SB Nation's Talking Chop back in 2015 which has since been renamed Battery Power. After years of writing for those fine folks, I made the decision to take over as Site Expert at House That Hank Built before becoming a full-time MLB Staff Writer for FanSided in 2023. Along the way, I have been a guest on multiple ESPN radio affiliates as well as 680 The Fan and 92.9 The Game to discuss Braves baseball and especially Braves prospects and was a long-time host on the Battery Power podcast. These days, I continue to write about the Braves as well as covering the Astros, Padres, and Angels with particular expertise with minor league coverage, the MLB Draft, and bashing Anthony Rendon when possible. When I am not writing about or talking about baseball (which is seldom), I am an avid baseball card collector (Maddux and Soroka being my primary personal collections) and I also collect shark teeth. All other sports are mostly dead to me as my Bills have broken my heart too many times.