Astros blast Sports Illustrated’s scathing Brandon Taubman report
The Houston Astros blasted a Sports Illustrated report that scorched assistant general manager Brandon Taubman for alleged comments he made after his club won the American League Championship Series this past weekend.
The report, published Monday night, said Taubman “turned to a group of three female reporters, including one wearing a purple domestic-violence awareness bracelet, and yelled, half a dozen times, ‘Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so f—— glad we got Osuna!’ during the post-game celebrations.
The report went on to criticize the executive. Osuna is the Astros closer who served a 75-game suspension for violating the league’s domestic violence policy in 2018. It also said “that another Houston staffer apologized” to the reporters after the alleged incident.
The Astros were chastised for acquiring Osuna from the Blue Jays that summer. They said it was “a tough decision” at the time.
Houston initially declined to comment for the Sports Illustrated story, but said Monday in a statement: “The story posted by Sports Illustrated is misleading and completely irresponsible. An Astros player was being asked questions about a difficult outing. Our executive was supporting the player during a difficult time. His comments had everything to do about the game situation that just occurred and nothing else — they were also not directed toward any specific reporters. We are extremely disappointed in Sports Illustrated’s attempt to fabricate a story where one does not exist.”
Osuna gave up a game-tying home run in the ninth inning to DJ Lemahieu during Game 6, before Jose Altuve hit a walk-off home run in the bottom half of the inning to lift the Astros over the Yankees.
A Houston Chronicle reporter corroborated Sports Illustrated’s story.
“The Astros called this [Stephanie Apstein] report misleading,” Hunter Atkins tweeted Monday. “It is not. I was there. Saw it. And I should’ve said something sooner.”
The Astros face the Nationals in Game 1 of the World Series on Tuesday in Houston.
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