❚ Will Astro Paranoia grip the Series?
There is no nightmare in baseball, no feeling of competitive vulnerability, quite like seeing your pitcher getting peppered by a lineup that knows exactly what pitch is coming.
It is a nightmare Andy Pettitte lived in Game 6 of the 2001 World Series, when the Diamondbacks trucked him for six runs in twoplus innings of a 15-2 victory, a pounding they later acknowledged came with the benefit of tipped pitches.
It is a nightmare Rays starter Tyler Glasnow lived this month, when he yielded hits to five of the first six Astros in a winner-takeall Game 5 of the AL Division Series and said it was “pretty obvious” he was tipping his pitches based on the position he held his glove.
And it’s a nightmare Stephen Strasburg endured for two grim starts against Arizona that sullied an otherwise impeccable 2019 resume, before he and pitching coach Paul Menhart discovered and, so they believe, swept up the bread crumbs the Diamondbacks followed to hit him hard.
Now, Strasburg and the Nationals are playing in the World Series against the Astros, who
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—3 not only are perhaps the most talented team in baseball but also carry the reputation as the most resourceful at gleaning advantages near the margins of ethical competition.
Given the mini-storm that passed through the AL Championship Series, when a published
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—1 —4 report raised the fairly absurd notion that Astros in the dugout were passing on the Yankees’ signs via whistle, it’s safe to say the Astros don’t need to do much to get into their opponents’ heads.
The Nationals know it’s wiser to check themselves rather than get caught up in Astro Paranoia.
To win the World Series, they will likely have to trot out aces Max Scherzer and Strasburg multiple times, giving sleuths in Houston multiple angles – from the dugout, the video room, the batter’s box – to gain an edge for the second time around.
Washington’s task: don’t give anything away.
“These games mean a little bit more,” says Menhart, who took over as Nationals’ pitching coach in May, “and everything’s getting dissected. From pitch tipping to sign stealing to pitch outs – you name it.
“This game is seen by a lot more people than a regular season game. Way more just the nature of it.”
Way more than eyes, too. Major League Baseball launched an investigation during the 2018 ALCS between Houston and the Red Sox when an Astros employee was observed in the camera well aiming a lens at the Boston dugout and sending text messages. The same activity was observed in the preceding ALDS against Cleveland and the employee was removed from the area in both instances.
Ultimately, MLB determined that the employee was “playing defense” – in other words, checking to see if the Red Sox were picking up the Astros’ signs – rather than trying to steal the opponent’s signals.
The Astros received a hollow bit of vindication – “A person was (still) in a credentialed (area) that shouldn’t have been there,” Red Sox GM Dave Dombrowski noted at the time – but also a rep for pushing the rules in an era MLB is eyes.
It’s