Los Angeles Dodgers TV analyst Orel Hershiser burned the Houston Astros with a sign-stealing zinger on Wednesday.
Jose Altuve was batting for the Astros in the bottom of the fifth inning of their game against the Dodgers and was frozen on a 1-2 pitch by Dylan Floro for a strikeout looking. Dodgers play-by-play announcer Joe Davis speculated that Altuve may have been expecting a different pitch. That led Hershiser to say “guessing’s harder than knowing”.
Orel Hershiser Guessing Harder Than Knowing pic.twitter.com/AeMAFLKftR
— Mad Choriyama (@MadChoriyama) July 30, 2020
In one biting phrase, Hershiser made clear the exact issue with what the Astros were doing.
Houston was found to have been cheating by illegally relaying stolen signs in real-time using technology. The difference of knowing what pitch is coming gives a hitter a huge advantage, and the Astros’ hitters seemingly may lack that now. That’s not to say that their hitters are not good players, but being a successful batter is much more difficult when you don’t have the sound of a trash can bang to help you out.
Keep in mind, Hershiser was a pitcher during his career, so he likely takes it more personally than others when hitters cheat to gain an advantage.
