The Houston Astros' history of cheating has given them little room for the benefit of the doubt, so when some potentially suspect whistling took place during Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, red flags were waved.
During their 9-1 win over the Red Sox on Friday to push Boston to the brink of elimination, fans, mainly those on Twitter, pointed out whistling on the FS1 broadcast when pitches were coming to the Astros. They have been popped in recent years for using a trash can to indicate which pitch was coming after nefariously stealing signs, so some suggested this was a different iteration of that.
However, that theory is something Sox manager Alex Cora isn't buying.
"I heard about it, regardless of everything the league has mandated and the rules, we are protected," Cora said Friday afternoon, via The Athletic's Jen McCaffrey. "It's not about technology, there's stuff that happens on the field that you have to be guarded. The same way teams play defense against us we play defense against other teams. There are a lot of people locked in to coaches to players, it's the nature of the game, we're prepared for that. The other stuff, I think MLB is doing an amazing job monitoring everything and being on top of it and we'll leave it at that."
Cora also had indicated Thursday that he thought the Astros were just playing good baseball.
Suffice it to say folks will be listening intently for whistling Friday night in Game 6 of the best-of-seven set. First pitch from Minute Maid Park is set for 8:08 p.m. ET. NESN will carry an hour of pregame coverage beginning at 7, as well as an hour of postgame coverage immediately following the final out.
