McHugh: Astro pitchers not “brave” enough to stop their cheaters
By Jeff Kallman
No Way Astros Pitchers Could’ve Stopped It
McHugh even hinted that it might have been somewhere between the rock of absolutely believing the other guys were doing something sneaky and the hard place of having to be convinced that they were.
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“Sign stealing is universal across the board bad for pitchers,” he says. “And we know that. It made our jobs harder. And we truly believed—or we were made to believe—that it was happening to us too. And we don’t know if that was true or not, but that’s not justification for doing anything. Just because you think they’re doing it is not justification for doing something you know is not right.”
What, then, could the 2017 Astros pitchers have done when they realized their own teammates were going rogue? Bear in mind that among all pitchers their relief pitchers—such as McHugh himself became the following season, when he also posted both the best ERA (1.99) and best fielding-independent pitching rate (FIP: 2.72) of his career—would have been stationed far too far away to hear the infamous trash can banging that sent the pilfered intelligence to the hitters.
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McHugh says he doesn’t know how the Astros’ pitchers could have stopped the AIA. “It wasn’t really our territory,” he continues. “Maybe we could’ve gotten together and somehow tried to stop it. Yeah, it was tough watching that. You feel for guys out there who are working their tails off whether they’re on your team or against you. I love seeing good pitching and it took some really good pitching that year to beat us.”
McHugh signed with the Red Sox for one year and a $600,000 base salary in a deal that could end up paying him as much as $4.25 million based on incentives. Essentially an insurance policy for the Red Sox in the event Chris Sale‘s flexor strain keeps him out for a protracted spell with or without Tommy John surgery, McHugh himself is recovering from a flexor problem. He’s not expected to be there for Opening Day as a result.
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The cynic would suggest how simple it is to speak out in remorse after you’re no longer a member of the cheating team, and the cynic would be right. Justin Verlander apologized and expressed remorse in February, though not to McHugh’s extent now. It’s to wish and wonder if and when other 2017 Astros pitchers might show the same over benefiting large and small from their teammates’ cheating.