Baker calls for MLB to take action

Dusty Baker wants action from Major League Baseball: End the criticism of the Astros from across baseball over sign stealing, and take steps to ensure pitchers don’t throw at his players.

“It’s not good for the game, it’s not good for kids to see it, so I think both,” the new Astros manager said Saturday in West Palm Beach, Florida. “Stop the comments and also stop something before it happens.”

Baker spoke in response to a wave of harsh comments during spring training about the Astros’ use of video to steal signs in 2017 and 2018. Dodgers 1B Cody Bellinger said Friday the Astros “stole” the 2017 World Series title from them and adds that Jose Altuve did likewise with the MVP, denying the Yankees’ Aaron Judge.

Astros players, management and ownership spent the first day of camp apologizing for their actions and professing remorse. But many players and front offices around the league didn’t feel they went far enough.

Nationals GM Mike Rizzo said he wanted to hear the Astros use the word “cheated” when addressing the situation.

“I’m depending on the league to try to put a stop to the seemingly premeditated retaliation that I’m hearing about,” Baker said. “In most instances in life you get kind of reprimanded for when you have premeditated anything.”

Dodgers P Ross Stripling indicated he might intentionally throw at Astros batters.

“We don’t start nothing,” Baker said. “This is kind of the slogan of my team: We don’t start anything — not intentionally. Guys are going to be getting hit intentionally and unintentionally. If you say you are going to drill somebody and all of the sudden you drill them, you can’t say, ‘I wasn’t trying to hit them,’ you know what I mean?”

Astros ace Justin Verlander expects the commissioner’s office to severely punish retaliation.

“The game has changed,” Verlander said. “I think the commissioner has made it very clear in the past few seasons that throwing a baseball at somebody intentionally isn’t an appropriate form of retaliation in the game any longer.”

Verlander also said it is “wrong” to speculate that the Astros — specifically Altuve — used buzzers as part of the sign stealing.

“We were successful in the World Series last year. All that stuff about buzzers and all that stuff is simply not true,” he said. “People can speculate all they want. We dug our grave. We’re in it. I think emphatically everybody made it very clear that that wasn’t true.”

OF George Springer declined to speak with the media Saturday. Altuve was not in the clubhouse during the time it was open to the media but through a spokesman also declined to comment on Bellinger’s remarks.

However, SS Carlos Correa addressed criticism that the team has endured and spoke about Bellinger’s comments.

“I have no problem when people talk about what happened during the regular season in 2017. You know, whatever people have to say, we’ve got to take that on the chin. Guys, it was wrong. It was wrong and we’ve got to own that and we’ve got to take that,” Correa told MLB.com.

“But when you stand in front of the camera and you don’t know the facts, you don’t know what happened and you’re not informed and you try to rip one of my teammates like that, when you don’t know.”

Verlander is concerned about the respect the Astros have lost around the league. However, he expects more revelations about sign stealing by other teams to emerge.

“Yeah, it bothers me,” he said. “But like I said, (Bellinger’s) entitled and everybody else is entitled to their own opinion. I think facts are still coming out, information’s still coming out, and I don’t think this is going to be something that’s done — not even for us. There’s going to be information that’s going to continue coming out for a long time.”

Could the Dodgers be one of those teams?

“I don’t want to insinuate about other organizations,” Verlander said. “The other day we apologized about what we did.”