Cubs’ Yu Darvish: Cheating Astros should vacate 2017 championship and stop talking

MESA, Ariz. – The Cubs pitcher with the biggest reason to be angry at the Astros for cheating to win the World Series in 2017 finally fired on the Astros Sunday in what might be his best tweet of his career, just a few hours after telling reporters the Astros should be stripped of their championship.

When an apparent Astros fan tweeted out a photo of the Astros’ 2017 World Series trophy, Darvish – who was shelled in two starts for the Dodgers in that Series – quote-tweeted this response:

“Gorgeous trashcan! I like it!”

The Cubs’ all-time Twitter leader hours earlier held court with writers after throwing a bullpen session, with his strongest comments yet on the cheating scandal that involved signaling stolen signs to hitters by systematic banging on trash cans in 2017.

“I am not angry, but it’s just a weird feeling,” Darvish said. “Like in the Olympics if the players cheat, you can’t have a gold medal, right? But they still have a World Series title. That makes me feel weird.”

Astros backlash has intensified over the past week after half-hearted player “apologies,” awkward attempts at defending each other and the baseball commissioner’s ham-fisted efforts Sunday to explain why the title wasn’t stripped and suggesting retaliation by pitchers against Astro hitters will be met with severe punishment.

Darvish’s comments came one day after teammate Kris Bryant called the Astros scandal “a disgrace to the game” and said, “I personally think it’s worse than steroids.”

On Saturday, Carlos Correa dug the Astros deeper into the muck when he defended teammate Jose Altuve in part by ripping the Dodgers’ Cody Bellinger for blasting Altuve and the Astros earlier in the week.

“I saw that [Saturday],” Darvish said. “So they cheated. I think right now they don’t have to talk. They shouldn’t talk like that right now.”

Darvish also said he agrees “for sure” the electronic sign-stealing scheme impacted some pitchers’ careers and didn’t seem to think the Astros have shown any remorse for that.

“Some people lost [their] job, right?” he said. “They have to do something. They have to apologize more. I don’t feel anything from their guys.”