AJ Hinch wont be managing in the big leagues any time soon, if at all. Alex Cora will soon join him in the unemployment line, and its hard to believe anyone will ever give him another job that involves being a leader of men.
The punishments technically Coras is still to come fit the crime, and for that baseball commissioner Rob Manfred deserves a pat on the back. Give another one to Astros owner Jim Crane, who did his part to clean up an increasingly smelly mess in Houston by immediately firing both his manager and general manager.
But that doesnt bring real justice. It cant.
Not to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who are now at 32 years and counting without a World Series title
Not to Clayton Kershaw, whose postseason failings were magnified in game 5 at Minute Maid Park when the Dodgers ace was raked for six runs and didnt make it out of the fifth inning.
And certainly not to Yu Darvish, whose reputation and nearly his career got trashed when he was routed by the Astros in two games of the 2017 World Series.
Yes, the official record shows the Houston Astros are still your 2017 World Series champions and thats not going to change regardless of the outcry from Southern California.
But does anyone really believe it?
Watch the second inning of Game 3 once again and then decide. Thats when Darvish was touched up for four runs and the Astros took a 2-1 lead in the series.
It was almost as if the hitters knew what was coming which, of course, they did.
If youre still not convinced, Game 5 should be evidence enough. Like Game 3 it took place at Minute Maid Park, where the cameras were rolling, the dugout trash can was booming and the Astros bats were blazing.
All with arguably the best pitcher in baseball since the turn of the century on the mound for the Dodgers. Kershaw didnt make it out of the fifth inning, surrendering six runs in a wild game that saw the Dodgers score a dozen times and still lose.
It turns out what really happened is the Astros cheated. Cora, their bench coach at the time, concocted a scheme to steal signs that made an already good team even better.
To make matters worse, they celebrated on the field at Dodger Stadium like they had earned every moment of it.
The bitter taste still lingers for both Dodger fans and players.
We were close, but we did it the right way, National League MVP Cody Bellinger told ESPN before the results of MLBs investigation were released.
It didnt help that the Dodgers would make the World Series the next year, too, only to see the visiting team celebrating a championship once again at Dodger Stadium. And who was the manager jumping up and down with his players and spraying champagne with his players for the second year in a row at Chavez Ravine?
