Carlos Correa gives puzzling new reason for why Jose Altuve didn’t want his jersey to be rippe doff

The Astros have a new reason for why Jose Altuve didn’t want his jersey ripped off.

The Houston Astros keep giving opposing fans even more reason to boo them during the upcoming MLB season after being exposed for cheating during their 2017 World Series season. After a series of awful PR blunders at Spring Training earlier this week, Astros star Carlos Correa is now under fire for his questionable explanation of a strange moment in the 2019 ALCS that fans have suggested is evidence of further cheating by the organization.

It was alleged on Twitter that members of the Astros wore buzzers under their uniforms during the 2019 MLB season, a sign-stealing evolution from their trash can-banging antics in 2017. Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer corroborated the theory, but the Astros have denied wearing buzzers, and the MLB investigation did not find evidence that players wore devices to steal signals. Still, fans have pointed to a pivotal and puzzling moment in the 2019 ALCS as proof that something strange is going on.

Astros star Jose Altuve hit a walk-off two-run homer off Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 to send the Astros to the World Series – but as he approached home plate to be mobbed by his teammates, he clearly warned them not to tear off his jersey.

We’ve since heard multiple explanations for why Altuve didn’t want his jersey ripped off, and none of them are particularly convincing. Altuve’s wife reportedly did not like seeing Altuve’s jersey come off in past incidents, while Scott Boras claims that Altuve is “shy” and didn’t want to go shirtless – yet he’s posted plenty of shirtless photos on his social media accounts, and even pulled his own jersey up to expose himself in the past.

In an interview with Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic, Carlos Correa offered a new explanation, and many fans aren’t buying it.

Via The Athletic:

“So when he’s running from third base to home plate, I’m the guy up front. The first one waiting for him. He’s like, ‘don’t take my shirt off.’ The second reason – he doesn’t want me to talk about this but I’m going to say it, is because he’s got an unfinished tattoo on his collarbone, that honestly looked terrible. It was a bad tattoo and he didn’t want nobody to see it. He didn’t want to show it at all.

So, one, he didn’t want to take his shirt off because his wife had told my wife earlier in the year for me to not to do that. So he was telling me not to do it. And, number two, he had an unfinished tattoo that looked kinda bad, that he didn’t want people to see and people to talk about. That was the reason.”

There are several reasons why Correa’s explanation here is suspect. The first, and most important reason, is that the Astros simply don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt at this stage. Beyond that, are we really expected to believe that after sealing a trip to the World Series in spectacular fashion, that Jose Altuve was concerned about his tattoo making it onto Twitter? A quick browse of Altuve’s Instagram account shows that he did not have a tattoo on his collarbone as of July 2019, unfinished or otherwise.

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