Astros' Jose Altuve on Jeff Luhnow, AJ Hinch losing their jobs: 'I feel bad for them'

Chris Bumbaca | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption Astros fire manager A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow What I'm Hearing: USA TODAY Sports' Bob Nightengale tells us what he's hearing in the aftermath of Astros managers A.J. Hinch and GM Jeff Luhnow being fired.

Hours after Houston Astros third baseman Alex Bregman said little — if anything at all — second baseman Jose Altuve spoke more, but revealed few additional thoughts into how the Astros plan to move past a cheating scandal that has rocked the sport.

On Saturday, Altuve, like Bregman, shot down allegations made on social media over the last few days that he and teammates wore a buzzer or wire that allowed them to identify which type of pitch was coming.

"That's ridiculous," Altuve told reporters at the Astros' Fan Fest. "MLB did their investigation and didn't find anything."

The MLB investigation Altuve referred to resulted in one-year bans for general manager Jeff Luhnow and manager AJ Hinch, both of whom were fired by owner Jim Crane. Former Boston Red Sox manager Alex Cora and former New York Mets manager Carlos Beltrán lost their jobs for their respective roles in the electronic sign-stealing scandal.

"I feel bad for them," Altuve said. "They’re good guys."

José Altuve addressed the sign-stealing penalties: “It’s a tough situation as a team and we have to stay together.”



On Hinch and Luhnow, “I feel bad for them.”



More: pic.twitter.com/n98OPxwZqh — Brian McTaggart (@brianmctaggart) January 18, 2020

Asked what it was like to be called a cheater, Altuve said, "You don’t want anybody to call you like that.

"But I have two options: One is cry or one is to go out there and play the game to help my team," he said. "You know which one I’m going to do."

Altuve said for the team to reach its goal of making it to the World Series for the second consecutive year, players will have to stick together.

“There’s a lot of difficulties in life. Believe me, at the end of the year, everything will be fine. We’re going to be in the World Series again. People don’t believe it, (but) we will. We will, like we made it last year.”