Major League Baseball is investigating the Joe Kelly incident in Houston on Tuesday night, a source told ESPN’s Buster Olney.
The Los Angeles Dodgers’ flamethrower reliever sent a 96mph fastball behind the head of Houston’s Alex Bregman in the sixth inning Tuesday night in further fallout from the 2017 Houston poster-stealing scandal.
Moments later, after a few more back-throws, Kelly teased Carlos Correa with a pouty face as he exited the mound and shared a few select words, prompting both banks to clear.
Kelly was not in the 2017 Dodgers, who lost the World Series to the Astros. But he was on a Red Sox team that lost to the Astros in the first round of that year’s postseason and then beat them in the American League Championship Series the following year.
Kelly denied any attempts with his pitches after the Dodgers’ 5-2 win, saying, “My accuracy is not the best.”
Astros manager Dusty Baker disagreed.
“The balls leak sometimes, but not a lot in the big leagues,” Baker said. “When you throw a 3-0 fastball over a guy’s head, now you’re flirting with finishing his career.”
Kelly was noticeably erratic in the bottom of the sixth. She fell behind 3-0 to Bregman before the fastball was thrown at her. Bregman took his base without saying a word.
Two hitters later, after the broadcast caught someone yelling at Kelly to “get back on the mound, little guy,” Kelly threw four consecutive pitches against Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel, one of them a curved ball that nearly hit. .
The first two shots to Correa, also curved balls, rejected him.
But then Kelly threw four more and finally hit Correa with a ball that snapped low and far, leaving two runners stranded and maintaining the Dodgers’ three-run lead.
The two soon started biting each other, causing both benches to clear without hitting.
A warning was issued to both sides, and Astros manager Dusty Baker struck up a close and heated conversation with team boss Chris Guccione.
Baker said that after Kelly pursed her lips at Correa, she also yelled, “Nice shot, b —-.”
“What are you supposed to do then?” Baker said. “And what bothered me was that the umpires warned us. Why don’t they warn him? He is the one who throws the ball. He is the one who started this mess in the first place. I didn’t like it at all.”
Kelly called her actions toward Correa “kind of the moment” and said she did not remember what she said.
On his facial contortions, which have become a popular GIF: “I think my expression was what I interpreted in my head.”
Tuesday’s game marked the first time the Dodgers and Astros had known each other since it was revealed that the Astros had illegally stolen posters and reported them to their hitters by hitting a trash can in 2017, a method that apparently spread through a world of seven games. The series triumphs over the Dodgers.
The Dodgers expressed much public anger at the Astros during spring training.
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