Houston Chronicle

» Jake Marisnick, now with Mets, “fels terribly” about Astros’ scandal.

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PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. - Hours after J.D. Davis expressed regret and embarrassm­ent for his knowledge of the 2017 Astros’ sign-stealing scheme, new Mets outfielder Jake Marisnick echoed his teammate — saying he “feels terribly” about the line that he crossed.

Marisnick, a seven-year big leaguer, saw his home batting average spike when he played 106 games for the Astros in 2017. He hit .308 (33 for 107) at Minute Maid Park — where MLB confirmed the Astros installed a monitor that displayed the center field camera feed immediatel­y outside of the Astros’ dugout — and.187 (23 for 123) on the road that season.

Marisnick began his press conference Friday by apologizin­g for “what happened in 2017.” He regrets not speaking up to his teammates, manager, coaches or front office about the Astros’ trash can-banging scheme.

“I want to say sorry to fans, Major League Baseball, my peers and anybody else who was affected by this,” Marisnick said. “We’re all in a clubhouse and we’re all grown men, and we all had a chance to voice our opinion. That’s something that I regret not doing is, I didn’t say anything on the matter.”

Also on Friday regarding the sign-stealing scandal:

• NL MVP Cody Bellinger thinks Houston’s Jose Altuve stole the 2017 AL MVP award from the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and the Astros swiped that year’s World Series title from the Dodgers.

“These guys were cheating for three years,” Bellinger said. “I think what people don’t realize is Altuve stole an MVP from Judge in ‘17. Everyone knows they stole the ring from us.“

Bellinger criticized Astros owner Jim Crane’s attempt at an apology Thursday and called Commission­er Rob Manfred’s punishment “weak.“Bellinger thinks the conduct continued through last season.

“One-hundred percent,” Bellinger said. “I don’t know why they would stop.”

• All-Star pitcher Trevor Bauer weighed in at Cincinnati’s spring camp in Goodyear, Ariz.

“I’m not going to let them forget the fact that they are hypocrites, they are cheaters, they’ve stolen from a lot of other people and the game itself,” Bauer told reporters. “They mocked everything about everyone who said they were doing something under the table or illegal or whatever, Now you’re lying about your apology. The entire time they had been super dismissive and it’s very obvious that they don’t think it affected the game. They feel like they were in the right. You can tell a fake apology.“

• Washington GM Mike Rizzo said: “They cheated. They were found guilty of it. And I haven’t heard it yet. Somebody’s got to say the words over there: ‘cheated.’ ”

• Phillies great Larry Bowa said the cancellati­on of the 1994 World Series was the worst time in his long career, but he is plenty steamed by the Astros’ scandal.

“I don’t think it can be any worse than (canceling the World Series), but this is close,” Bowa said. “What the Astros did is bad. It’s really … bad. I know for a fact that if that happened when I was playing and Steve Carlton had been pitching, he’d have drilled somebody if they kept hitting that can. I’m not saying hit them in the head. I don’t want anybody to get killed, but hit somebody in the ribs and say, ‘If you want to keep doing it, we’re going to keep drilling you.’ That will stop it.”

Bowa is also appalled that the Astros denied using buzzer alerts inside their uniforms, a part of the scandal that appeared to be revealed by video of Jose Altuve’s game-winning home run in Game 6 of the 2019 ALCS at Houston.

“If that was me, I’d let them rip every piece of my clothing off,” Bowa said. “They’ve turned their back on that part of it, and they keep saying there was no buzzer. There was a buzzer.”

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