Houston Astros pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. said he and his family received death threats on social media after he allowed seven runs in the first inning of Saturday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds. The Houston Police Department is officially investigating the threats, according to the Houston Chronicle.
The detectives in charge are from the Major Offenders Division. As of Monday morning, nobody had been taken into custody.
Saturday was McCullers’ first start in a home game after recovering from an arm injury that sidelined him for two seasons. On Saturday, McCullers said that although he understands the Astros have a passionate fanbase, “there should be some type of decency” so he doesn’t have to worry about the safety of his wife and two daughters.
“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,” McCullers 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.”
After the incident, McCullers deleted his account on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Astros manager Joe Espada also spoke out against the threats and said it is “very unfortunate” McCullers has to deal with it.
“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,” Espada said. “Very sad. Very, very sad.”
This news was originally published on this post .
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