A two-time World Series champion has received death threats from his own fans.
Houston pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. — who was on the Astros’ 2022 and 2017 World Series-winning squads — said he received online death threats directed at his children after his tough start Saturday night against the Cincinnati Reds.
McCullers allowed seven runs, all earned, in just one-third of an inning in Houston’s 13-9 home loss.
It was just the second start since Game 3 of the 2022 World Series for McCullers, who has had numerous injuries that have kept him off the field in the last couple of seasons.
But some crazed Astros fans weren’t about to give him a grace period.
After the loss, McCullers said he had received the threats on social media.
“I understand people are very passionate and people love the Astros and love sports, but threatening to find my kids and murder them is a little bit tough to deal with,” the 31-year-old right-hander said. “So just as a father I think there have been many, many threats over the years aimed at me mostly, and I think actually one or two people from other issues around baseball actually had to go to jail for things like that. But I think bringing kids into the equation, threatening to find them or next time they see us in public, they’re going to stab my kids to death, things like that, it’s tough to hear as a dad.”
The Astros said the Houston Police Department and MLB security had been alerted to the threats.
McCullers and his wife Kara have two young daughters.
Astros manager Joe Espada was visibly upset regarding the threats to McCuller’s family while adding that there also were threats to his pitcher’s life.
“There are people who are threatening his life and the life of his kids because of his performance,” Espada said. “It is very unfortunate that we have to deal with this. After all he’s done for this city, for his team, the fact that we have to talk about that in my office — I got kids too and it really drives me nuts that we have to deal with this. Very sad, very, very sad.”
McCullers, who began his career with the Astros in 2015, said the death threats are hard to deal with and make it even more challenging to try to regain his form on the mound.
“If you fail you fail on a very large stage (with) a lot of eyes and there’s nowhere to hide,” said McCullers, who has a 49-32 record with a 3.46 ERA in his eight seasons with the team. “At the end of the day, I just want to do my job. I just want to be a good pitcher for the Astros and I believe I’ll get there, but like I said I just think that having to worry about that, worry about leaving town and leaving them and things like that or dropping her off at school, I just think … there should be some type of decency.”
— with AP