Max Muncy accused the Houston Astros of stealing the Dodgers' signs during an 18-1 blowout loss on July 4.
There's just one catch.
The Astros, Muncy said during an appearance Tuesday on Foul Territory, did nothing illegal.
“Do I think they know what was coming? Yes I do," Muncy said of the Astros. "Do I think they were cheating to get there? No, I think they had a tip on the pitcher and that’s on us to clean that up. That’s not cheating. That’s part of the game. Good teams are going to do that."
Starter Ben Casparius was shelled for nine hits and six earned runs in three innings. His ERA jumped from 3.97 to 4.68, and the right-hander lost his spot in the starting rotation.
"So yes, I think they knew what was coming, but it wasn’t because they were cheating. We’ve addressed it, we’ve cleaned it up — hopefully — and it’s one of those things where you have to always be careful about what you’re doing out there. You don’t want to give anything away to the other team. That’s something we take advantage of a lot of times. You have to find a way to clean that up. That’s not cheating. That’s part of the game. That’s being a smart baseball player, is what that is.”
It's worth wondering if Casparius' outing against the Astros was the first time he was tipping pitches. He was touched for eight hits and six runs in his June 28 outing in Kansas City. If the Royals knew what was coming, Casparius didn't figure out how he was tipping his pitches between outings.
That did not appear to be a problem Wednesday in Milwaukee, when Casparius faced only one batter above the minimum while throwing 1.2 scoreless innings of relief.
It merely made Casparius' flat performance against the Astros all the more surprising.
“This is a guy who was throwing 97, 98 with a wicked slider," Muncy said. "We’ve seen him dominate a lot of teams. For there to be no flinching, that kind of throws up a red flag that they might have something on him.
"We’ve got to find a way to look at it. We have a lot of guys who are really good at that stuff.”
