Houston Astros shortstop Carlos Correa came out with a much different attitude than the apologetic one he had when the team collectively answered questions about what happened in the cheating scheme during the 2017 season.
In an interview with The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal — Correa defended teammate Jose Altuve on why he didn’t want his jersey ripped off after hitting a walk-off homer against New York Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series:
“He hit that home run off (Aroldis) Chapman, fair and square. He was not wearing buzzers. That’s a story that a fake account on Twitter broke and then people just got on that wagon and started talking about the buzzers. Like, no. Nobody thought about buzzers. Nobody was using buzzers.
“Earlier in the year, he hit a walk-off at Minute Maid Park, I ripped off his shirt with Tony Kemp. There are pictures of that. There are videos of that. You can go look at it. I ripped off his shirt and his wife told my wife, ‘Why is Carlos ripping Altuve’s shirt? I don’t like that.’ So when he’s running from third base to home plate, I’m the guy up front. The first one waiting for him. He’s like, ‘don’t take my shirt off.’ The second reason – he doesn’t want me to talk about this but I’m going to say it – is because he’s got an unfinished tattoo on his collarbone, that honestly looked terrible. It was a bad tattoo and he didn’t want nobody to see it.”
Correa also fired several shots to Los Angeles Dodgers star Cody Bellinger saying the Astros stole the World Series from the L.A. and Altuve cheated to win the American League MVP over Aaron Judge in 2017:
“Cody, you don’t know the facts. Nobody wants to talk about this but I’m going to talk about this. Jose Altuve was the one guy that didn’t use the trash can.
“(Bellinger) said that they all lost respect for us. But that’s not how life works. … But, like I said before, what doesn’t sit well with me is when you say false statements. If you don’t know the facts. If you’re not informed. This is America. You can say whatever you want. But Cody Bellinger’s job is to look for information. Get informed. Know the facts, for sure, before he stands in front of cameras to talk about other players. You should get informed. You should be informed before you talk about other players. If you don’t know the facts, then you’ve got to shut the f–k up.”
Here he is saying even more on camera while defending Jose Altuve:
