Astros discuss sign stealing

Alex Bregman spoke for about 30 seconds and said he was sorry, but did not say why. He said he had learned, but did not say what.

On a patch of grass between the Houston Astros’ spring training building and fields, under a sun obscured by clouds, the star third baseman stepped to a microphone at a news conference, becoming the first player Thursday to apologize -- without really discussing with any details -for the sign-stealing scheme from the club’s 2017 World Series championship season.

“I am really sorry about the choices that were made by my team, by the organization and by me. I have learned from this and I hope to regain the trust of baseball fans,” Bregman began, before thanking Astros fans and saying he and his teammates “are totally focused on moving forward to the 2020 season.”

And thus the script was set.

The most eyebrow-raising statement came soon thereafter, when Astros owner Jim Crane replied to a question from a reporter by saying: “Our opinion is that this didn’t impact the game. We had a good team.

We won the World Series. And we’ll leave it at that.”

Moments later, Crane tried to backtrack, saying, “It’s hard to determine how it impacted the game, if it impacted the game.”

NHL

SABRES BEAT BLUE JACKETS IN OT >> Rookie Victor Olofsson scored his second goal of the game 2:44 into overtime, and the Buffalo Sabres beat the depleted Columbus Blue Jackets 4-3 on Thursday night.

Jack Eichel had a goal and and two assists for Buffalo on a night when the Sabres honored members of their 2000 decade teams as part of the franchise’s season-long 50th anniversary celebrations. Evan Rodrigues also scored, and Carter Hutton stopped 28 shots to improve to 4-1 in his past five starts.

The Blue Jackets dropped to 0-1-2 in their past three games in their worst skid since losing four straight from Nov. 30 to Dec. 7. Columbus squandered a 2-0 lead, but salvaged a point on Markus Nutivaara’s tap-in goal with 1:13 remaining in regulation. Nathan Gerbe and Boone Jenner also scored for the Blue Jackets, who lost 2-1 to Buffalo in overtime on Feb. 1.