Joe Kelly: 'I think I'll be irritated forever' about Astros' sign-stealing scandal

At this point, no one across Major League Baseball likes the Houston Astros, and that's been made pretty clear. Joe Kelly, though, is among the group that takes their hate to the next level. 

The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher's eight-game suspension was recently reduced to just five games after an appeal. His suspension came after he threw a ball near the head of Astros third baseman Alex Bregman and later taunted shortstop Carlos Correa during a July 28 game in Houston. 

Although Kelly wasn't a member of the 2017 Dodgers team that lost the World Series to the Astros, he had to deal with the organization's antics in 2018 as a member of the Boston Red Sox. 

A.J. Hinch, Jeff Luhnow, Carlos Beltran and Alex Cora all lost their jobs for their involvement in the cheating scandal, though Kelly believes the players should receive much more blame than they've gotten to this point. 

"The people who took the fall for what happened is nonsense," Kelly said on teammate Ross Stripling's "The Big Swing" podcast, according to ESPN's Buster Olney. "Yes, everyone is involved. But the way that (sign-stealing system) was run over there was not from coaching staff. ... They're not the head boss in charge of that thing. It's the players. So now the players get the immunity, and all they do is go snitch like a little (expletive), and they don't have to get fined, they don't have to lose games.

"When you take someone's livelihood ... to save your own ass, that's what I don't like. Cheating? They cheated. Everyone knows they're cheaters. They know they're cheaters. It's over. That's done with. But now they mess it up by ruining other people's lives, so they (expletive) it up twice. ... When you taint someone's name to save your own name, this is one of the worst things that you could probably do. ... That really friggin' bugs me. I think I'll be irritated forever."

Astros players have been hit by pitches multiple times already this season, because, like Kelly, not many pitchers in MLB like them right now. 

Houston is 8-10 on the season. The Dodgers, on the other hand, are 12-7.