Joe Kelly plays his own national pastime, puts Astros fans on blast again
By Scott Rogust
The Houston Astros officially became one of the most hated teams in MLB after the league discovered that they had illegally stolen signs from opponents in the 2017 season. That just so happened to be the year that Houston won their first-ever World Series title. The Astros were found to have used cameras to spot the signs from the opposing pitcher and relay it to the hitter by banging on trash cans.
With that, the Astros became the enemies of many teams in the league, one of them being the Los Angeles Dodgers, who lost to them in the 2017 World Series. Joe Kelly embraced the role of being the thorn in the side of the Astros, where he hit Alex Bregman with a pitch and nearly plunked Carlos Correa. Kelly notoriously mocked Correa, pouting at him after leaving the mound, resulting in the benches clearing.
Well on Sunday, Kelly continued to irritate Astros fans. In the Dodgers' 6-2 win over the Astros, Kelly pitched a scoreless inning, in which he recorded one strikeout and allowed one hit.
After the game, Kelly was asked by reporters if he heard Astros fans booing him. Kelly said of the crowd at Minute Maid Park, "They weren't loud enough, honestly." Kelly's quote comes courtesy of David Vassegh of SportsNet LA.
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Joe Kelly says Astros fans 'weren't loud enough' for him to hear boos on Sunday
In case you were wondering, here's what it sounded like when Kelly warmed up on the mound in the top of the eighth inning. The video comes courtesy of Maanav Gupta of Maanav's Sports Talk on YouTube.
Kelly started off the bottom of the eighth inning by striking out Joey Loperfido on three pitches, but would follow tht up by surrendering a double to Jose Altuve. That left Kelly with the task of facing Alex Bregman and Yordan Alvarez in that order. Kelly forced Bregman to line out to second baseman Cavan Biggo. While a wild pitch advanced Altuve to third base, Kelly got Alvarez to fly out to get out of the inning unscathed.
The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the first inning after James Outman crushed a solo home run. In the sixth, Gavin Lux crushed a two-run homer to right-center field to extend Los Angeles' lead to 3-0. While the Astros pulled within a 3-2 deficit in the bottom of the sixth thanks to a two-run homer by Yainer Diaz. But, the Dodgers pulled away in the top of the eighth inning after a solo homer by Teoscar Hernandez and an RBI single by Cavan Biggio. Jason Heyward scored the Dodgers' sixth-run in the ninth inning after a sacrifice fly by Jason Heyward.
This is the last time that the Dodgers and Astros will face off in the regular season. So Houston fans decided to let out the boos when they saw Kelly enter the game. But Kelly was unphased by it, and he let the Astros fans know it postgame.