Anthony Rendon strikes forgiving tone over Astros’ cheating

From Kris Bryant to Trevor Bauer to Aroldis Chapman, players around Major League Baseball have been tearing the Houston Astros to shreds for their sign-stealing scheme that helped them determine what types of pitches were coming in 2017, the year they won the World Series.

Former Washington Nationals star Anthony Rendon had a different, more measured response.

Speaking at Los Angeles Angels’ spring training Monday, Rendon noted that others around the sport were “quick to hammer (the Astros) down and just kill them,” adding that “you can forgive them, but that doesn’t mean you have to forget.”

The third baseman — who hails from Houston — was asked if he lost any respect for the Astros for their cheating.

“I’m not sure about respect, but you can definitely view them differently,” Rendon said, according to an Angels reporter for The Athletic.

“But at the end of the day — and I’ve been thinking about this a lot, too, because I knew this day was going to come and I was going to get a lot of questions about it. Everyone’s quick to hammer them down and just kill them, basically. But at the end of the day, we’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror, and we’re not perfect people. Whether it’s a speeding ticket or whatever it might be, some of us are trying to get an edge some way or another in life. (The Astros) happened to get caught for doing it. You can forgive them but that doesn’t mean you have to forget.”

Rendon said it “stung a little bit different” that it was his hometown team caught in critics’ crosshairs. But having played for the Nationals last year, Houston’s scheme didn’t catch him by surprise. He confirmed that he and his Washington teammates knew about the Astros’ ways before they faced off in the 2019 World Series, which the Nationals won in seven games.

“We were aware of it,” Rendon said. “We were aware of it throughout the entirety of the playoffs. We kind of have a sense of what teams were doing what, and so we can kind of just get a feel of what they might be doing.”