Justin Verlander has made no public comments about the punishment that was handed down to the Houston Astros after Major League Baseball determined the team cheated in 2017, but someone has raised a lot of suspicions by adamantly defending the Cy Young Award winner on social media.
A Twitter user under the handle @Jonatha19721565 has done nothing but defend Verlander and Houston’s pitching staff since the anonymous person created the account just days ago. The first tweet from the account was composed on Friday, and it ridiculed Astros position players for not speaking out after “their actions put the Astros pitchers in such a bad situation.”
They won't speak out even though their actions put the Astros pitchers in such a bad situation. They did nothing wrong and now will have to answer the questions
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 17, 2020
From there, the account continued to defend Astros pitchers for the way they were “dragged into this mess.” There were several tweets about Verlander and his supposed lack of involvement in any illegal activity that went on in Houston during the 2017 season. Some of the tweets appeared to include inside information, like one that stated Verlander “wanted to speak up but couldn’t because the system was underway when he got there.”
Everyone commenting on this needs to understand that one guy cannot stop an entire cheating system, especially when he arrived after it started. New team and teammates. He's supposed to speak up to those guys?
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 17, 2020
Justin wanted to speak up but couldn't because the system was underway when he got there. One pitcher can't stop something that big when it's underway and the team is in that deep
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 17, 2020
Especially the pitchers. They got dragged into this mess. You got verlander coming off a Cy young people forget
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 17, 2020
Justin still is still a major advocate for a clean game. He arrived and the system was in place. What was he supposed to do about it then? It’s hard to rat our teammates and coaches
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 20, 2020
Justin competed fairly during that World Series. He has earned everything that he’s gotten. Actions of teammates are on them
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 20, 2020
He’s probably trying to let his teammates… you know the ones who actually created and used the scheme… do the talking for the team
— Jonathan12345 (@Jonatha19721565) January 20, 2020
Verlander was traded to the Astros during the 2017 season, so it isn’t a leap to say the sign-stealing system was in place when he arrived. However, it is odd that this person claims to know the right-hander wanted to speak out about it. That could be an assumption from a fan who knows Verlander has been outspoken on anything ranging from PED rules to free agency to juiced balls, but it’s only natural to wonder if the person running the account could be connected to Verlander in some way.
The Twitter police have already closed in on the account, with one person noting that the email address associated with @Jonatha19721565 appears like it may be tied to a company Verlander endorses.
Of course, with every “real” burner Twitter account comes countless fake ones. The idea of burner accounts has become so popular in recent years that some people are creating accounts with the intention of making them sound like athletes secretly defending themselves, which is essentially what we saw with a phony Twitter account claiming to be Carlos Beltran’s niece.
We’ll probably never know if @Jonatha19721565 is Verlander or someone associated with the eight-time All-Star. At the very least, the person behind the account is such a big Verlander fan that he or she created an account just to defend Verlander’s honor.
The Houston Astros are confirmed cheaters and deserve an asterisk. Send that message by wearing our Houston Asterisks T-shirt! You can buy it here:
