Nationals’ Kurt Suzuki: ‘No question’ the Astros stole signs during 2019 World Series
Major League Baseball determined that the Houston Astros used technology to steal signs throughout the 2017 season and for part of 2018. At least one member of the team that faced Houston in last year’s World Series is convinced the practice continued well beyond that timeline.
“Oh, yeah, no question,” Washington Nationals catcher Kurt Suzuki told Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell. “We could hear it from their dugout. We heard their whistling. What are you going to do?”
The Astros defeated the Dodgers in seven games to win the 2017 World Series — a championship that many now think was stolen from L.A. The Nationals were determined to avoid such a fate against Houston two years later, Boswell wrote, so they changed their signs with every batter and sometimes even within an at-bat if they suspected foul play from their opponents.
When the Houston Astros present themselves publicly, they will not do so as AL champions. They will do so as baseball’s greatest villains of this generation.
“The whole thing was crazy,” Suzuki said. “I got messed up on signs a couple of times, had to call time and take us out of rhythm. I kept thinking, ‘We have to go to the field and work early on our signs in the World Series just to stop their cheating.’ It’s so stupid and so wrong.”
The Nationals prevailed over Houston in seven games to win their first World Series championship. Houston players have insisted they had stopped sign-stealing by then.
But Suzuki isn’t buying it.
“They just got better at it,” he told Boswell.
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