Steve Pearce responds to Alex Bregman's trolling: 'We do our talking on the field'

Staff writer

Tue, Oct 16, 2018, 7:15 PM

The Boston Red Sox and Houston Astros are tied at one game apiece in the American League Championship Series. But the Astros are 2017 World Series champions, and they’re still acting like it.

During the Monday off-day before Game 3 in Houston, Astros infielder Alex Bregman posted a doozy of an Instagram story. The video showed the Astros hitting three consecutive home runs home runs off of Boston’s Game 3 starter Nate Eovaldi back in June, when Eovaldi was still pitching for the Tampa Bay Rays.

Bregman’s instagram story right is a video of the Astros going back-to-back-to-back dingers off Nate Eovaldi in June.
🔥🌶🔥🌶🔥🌶🔥🌶 pic.twitter.com/HzPS0W2DKW
— Cespedes Family BBQ (@CespedesBBQ) October 15, 2018

That’s a pretty devastating troll job, and a major show of confidence for Bregman, who has walked 10 times in the 2018 playoffs and has a .417 batting average. Though considering how rare it is for pitchers to give up back-to-back-to-back home runs, Eovaldi probably hadn’t forgotten about it.

According to USA Today, Astros manager A.J. Hinch told Bregman to delete the video, which he did. Hinch said that while he felt the video was “all in good fun,” it “probably” crossed a line and was a little disrespectful.

In news that will shock no one, the Red Sox agree with the “disrespectful” part of Hinch’s assessment! While no one responded to Bregman on social media, first baseman Steve Pearce told WEEI.com that he was less than impressed.

“Wow. I don’t know why he would do that,” Red Sox first baseman Steve Pearce told WEEI.com. “We do our talking on the field. If he wants to run his mouth now we’ll see who is talking at the end of the series. I don’t think he needs to run his mouth. He’s one of the best players in the game. If that’s his personality, that’s his personality. Nothing against the guy. If that’s how he has to motivate himself, whatever.”

Nope, Pearce is definitely not a fan of that kind of “motivation.” But Pearce’s teammate Blake Swihart had a slightly different take. He and Bregman grew up together in New Mexico and were childhood friends, and recognized what Bregman was trying to do with his Instagram post.

“To me, in his mind, he’s probably thinking he’s trying to pump up his team, get everyone excited,” said Swihart, who said he hadn’t talked to Bregman about the post. “It might have come off the wrong way. I know he deleted it now. I think he was just trying to pump everybody up, that’s all. In this type of game, you should already be pretty pumped up. I think he was just trying to pump people up.”

Whether Bregman was trolling, motivating, or both, he and the Astros will have the chance to repeat June’s three-homer performance against Eovaldi on Tuesday night. But if Eovaldi and the Red Sox end up beating them, maybe Bregman should put the phone down for the rest of the series.