Mike Trout rips cheating Astros

TEMPE, ARIZ. » Mike Trout thinks the Houston Astros should pay more dearly for their cheating ways.

The Los Angeles Angels’ three-time AL MVP ripped the Astros and questioned the discipline handed out by Major League Baseball on Monday after he reported to spring training. Trout joined the chorus of prominent big leaguers angry about Houston’s rampant sign stealing on its way to the 2017 World Series title and beyond.

“It’s sad for baseball,” he said. “It’s tough. They cheated. I don’t agree with the punishments, the players not getting anything. It was a playerdriven thing. It sucks, too, because guys’ careers have been affected. A lot of people lost jobs. It was tough.

“Me going up to the plate knowing what was coming? It would be fun up there. A lot of guys lost respect for some of the guys.”

Trout said a few members of the Astros reached out to him during the offseason to explain their side, but Trout didn’t sound impressed.

“You don’t know what helped them or what not,” he said. “But if you know what’s coming, it’s going to definitely help them. I don’t know if you take the trophy away or take the rings away, but they should definitely do something.”

Trout doesn’t remember hearing the Astros banging on trash cans at Minute Maid Park during his nine big league seasons, all with the Angels in the AL West.

“I noticed the banging off the bat from center field,” Trout said. “It just feels like they weren’t missing pitches. It’s frustrating, because you have guys coming in here battling every day and working on stuff . ... I can’t imagine what the pitchers feel like. It’s a mental game. You go in a stretch where you’re doing good, and you go into Houston and get banged up, it could mentally drain you.”

Trout didn’t make a suggestion for what the Astros players’ punishment should have been, but the scandal obviously touched a nerve in the Halos’ brilliant center fielder, who has spent his entire career trying to outhit the Astros.

“Obviously the GM got fired and Hinch got fired,” Trout said of punishments for Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch. “But the players getting nothing, that’s definitely not right, for sure.”

“I think everybody wants it to be a clean, level playing field,” Trout added. “I didn’t know it wasn’t until this stuff came out, and then you realize when we played at them at (Houston) or whatever, they were hitting a lot of balls. They’ve got a lot of great players over there for sure, but it was something different.”