Bizarre Astros bat inspection has Yankees fans crying 'cheating' again

Ever since the much-maligned 2017 Houston Astros cheating scandal, their meetings with the New York Yankees have been exceptionally heated. Much like any team and their fans who lost to the Astros while they were using cameras and trash cans to gain an unfair advantage, they'll never forget the cheating. And on Thursday night in Houston, that scandal came right back up thanks to Taylor Trammell's bat.

In the bottom of the ninth inning, Trammell laced a double off the facade of the Crawford boxes in left field to put runners on second and third with no outs as Houston tried to stage a comeback while trailing 8-3. After the hit, though, the umpires grabbed the bat and began inspecting it thoroughly.

There were initial speculative comments about a possible corked bat and also potentially a pine tar situation. However, upon further inspection, it seemed that Trammell's bat had been worn down past the original paint, and the umpires were forced to call New York for a ruling.

And here's a look at the investigation, or at least part of it.

Truly never seen anything like that on a baseball field.

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Astros worn bat gets inspected, but umpires do nothing but take it away

What might've been most shocking about the incident, however, is that nothing was done after the inspection. Someone came out and took the bat out of play (and was later seen taking pictures of it, assumedly for MLB). However, the umpires never delivered a full explanation and Trammell was allowed to stay at second base.

Considering that the delay while they were inspecting the bat took nearly 10 minutes, just about everyone expected some sort of hammer-dropping ruling, at least in the sense of this game was coming. So to see the Astros get off scot-free was shocking, to say the least.

And, of course, the cheating allegations from Yankees fans came out in full force.

Yankees fans immediately brought up cheating with the Astros again

It was the most predictable possible outcome, especially after the umps' ruling, or lack thereof.

Obviously, something was deemed to be wrong with the bat. Otherwise, the umpires aren't taking it and spending that long investigating it. However, I'm not going to pretend to be an expert into how that would help a hitter, given that I've never taken a physics class and struggled to pass other 101-level science courses.

Having said that, this is somewhat the penance that the Astros are always going to have to pay for 2017. Anytime that something happens with this team, regardless of who is on the roster and if they were involved in the scandal, the cheating is going to get brought up again. Sure, it might be the worst when it's against a team like the Yankees, but it'll keep happening that way regardless of the opponent.

One thing we're all waiting on, though, is an explanation as to exactly what the hell happened, both from the Astros and Yankees, and the umpire crew.