DUNEDIN, FLA.—If baseball wants to take away his 2017 World Series ring, Ken Giles says they can have it.

“Whatever they ask, I would oblige. Because what was going on at the time was not OK.”

What was going on at the time was, as the whole world now knows, a variously sophisticated and slapstick cheating scheme: the Astros utilizing TV cameras to steal signs in real time from opposing catchers (the slick part) and banging on trash cans to alert their hitters at the plate about what pitch to expect (the burlesque part).

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Giles was part of that Houston team. A key part, converting 34 saves, though it all went pear-shaped for the closer personally in the post-season — giving up at least one run in seven playoff appearances before manager A.J. Hinch gave up on him completely, never using Giles again after Game 4 of the World Series against Los Angeles.

Despite suspensions of the general manager and manager that resulted from a belated MLB investigation — and their ensuing firings — baseball hasn’t recovered. The scandal has shaken the game to its foundation.

Commissioner Rob Manfred chose not to vacate the World Series championship for 2017. No player has been punished. But opponents, rightly furious, have clearly embarked on direct vigilantism. Through six spring training games, seven Astros had been hit by pitches.

The first to get dinged (purportedly unintentional) in his first appearance was ’17 American League MVP Jose Altuve, who also catapulted Houston into the Fall Classic last October with a walk-off home run against Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman in Game 6 of the ALCS. Rounding third base, Altuve clearly implored teammates not to rip off his jersey in the giddy celebration — since viewed suspiciously as a pre-emptive warning to avoid exposing the messaging buzzer allegedly taped to his body. (Manfred insists no buzzer evidence was found by the baseball probe.)

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All of it, both the treachery and the retribution, has sickened Giles.

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“I feel awful, how the guys are being punished,” the 29-year-old Blue Jays closer told the Star on Friday, in his first forthright conversation about the scandal. “They’re great people, they really are, and great ballplayers. But I guess sometimes you just have to roll with it. Either be quiet or speak up and tell the truth. Go out there and perform, show them what you’re made of. Competition-wise, it’s going to be harder, in all of baseball, because now they’ll want to show that it’s man to man and not just computer to computer.”

Astros players have done a lame job of exculpating themselves from the chicanery of 2017 — and the perception that the club continued its duplicitous ways through the 2019 World Series, mercifully vanquished in seven games by the Nationals.

“I was not aware about anything,” Giles states flatly. For this ex-Astro, so notoriously hard on himself that he once socked himself in the jaw after giving up a three-run ninth-inning homer, the refutation sounds genuine. “It crushed me to learn about the stuff that went on when I was there. I had no idea. I had no clue whatsoever. I was blindsided by the commissioner’s report. Up until then, I honestly didn’t believe it. Just crazy.”

Houston pitchers would not, presumably, have benefitted from the chicanery afoot. And as Giles points out, he was in the bullpen until late in the games where he appeared, far from the dirty business taking place in the dugout, the tunnel and the video room. Giles adds, truthfully: “I was still pretty young. And at the end of the day, I had my own problems in Houston, which were well documented.”

As Giles admitted after the trade that brought him to Toronto for Roberto Osuna on July 30, 2018: “I felt trapped there. I felt out of place.’’

But he does have a World Series ring at home, which is now tainted.

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“It just hurts. If they want it back, I’ll be true to whatever needs to be done.”

Giles similarly had plenty to say last season when the discussion turned to juiced balls, homers blasting out of ballparks left and right at record numbers. Manfred has steadfastly maintained nothing had been altered in how the balls were made. Few are buying that, either.

“There are a lot of theories,” says Giles. “There has been evidence that the ball was changed. But changed or not, you’ve still got to figure out a way to get outs. Do I expect things to change this season? I’m not holding my breath. We’ll just have to see when the season starts. If the balls are juiced, I’ll just have to make my adjustments. If they’re not, it is what it is. Something I can’t control.’’

It was early in spring training a year ago that Giles showed how serious he is about the game, how unwilling to accept any laissez-faire attitude, even among teammates. During a pitchers’ fielding exercise, he unleashed a clutch of loud not-kidding F-bombs aimed at fellow pitcher David Paulino — also part of that Osuna trade — who, in Giles’ opinion, had been dogging the drill.

“Doesn’t matter who it is. If you don’t like something, speak your mind. Just don’t say it behind a guy’s back. Say it to their face, eye to eye, like a man. Confront them. Afterwards, either you don’t like each other or you come to terms.

“What happened there, it didn’t fly with me. It only takes one player to drag down a whole organization. Everybody else sees that and they think that’s OK. Taking one pitch off, that’s OK. In my eyes, it’s not OK. You’re here to do your job and don’t take for granted the opportunity the organization has given you.

“For me, not being a high-round pick, a long-shot reliever in the minors, I had to work my butt off to make an impression. When I got my opportunity, I stamped it and I stamped it hard, that I was here to stay.”

Paulino was released by the Jays last August.

Giles blew only one save in 24 chances for the Jays in 2019 — there just weren’t that many save situations in a disaster of a season and he was thrice on the injury list with elbow issues — ending the year with a sparkling 1.87 ERA. One of those injury absences occurred at the trade deadline, costing the Jays a valuable swap asset. The general consensus was that Toronto didn’t need a stalwart closer, given their general lousiness.

Yet Giles had made it quite clear that he didn’t want to be moved, traded for a third time in his career. Arbitration eligible, he signed a one-year contract extension in January for $9.6 million (U.S.).

“Everybody wants to stay in a comfortable environment. I’ve been traded twice. The first time (from Philadelphia to Houston in 2015) was not a great experience. I didn’t settle in as well as I would have liked. And things happened.’’

The deal to Toronto was a godsend. “I was eager for a change and I needed a change. Thankfully it happened. I learned from my first trade what I didn’t want to happen in the second trade — to express myself, to communicate with the coaches. It’s a big thing when they want to get to know who you are as a person, other than what you can bring on to the field.”

Trade rumours will likely swirl around Giles again as this season unfurls. His best years, very much now, might not coincide with Toronto’s best years in the future, as envisioned.

The Astros, by the way, cross paths with Toronto for the first time this season at the Rogers Centre from May 18 to 20.

Giles has nothing to say to them.

“The damage is already done. There’s nothing you can do about it. They have to move past it.

“They’re going to feel like the bad guys all year. I know what it feels like to be the bad guy. And it’s not the greatest feeling. But actions speak louder than words. I just hope they play honestly.”