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Dodgers: Joe Kelly Calls Astros Manager Dusty Baker a Body Shamer on Big Swing Pod

Joe Kelly’s time with Dodgers teammate Ross Stripling and the other guy on Stripling’s “Big Swing Podcast” has gone viral for all the right reasons. The guest spot featured insight on MLB’s process of suspension appeals and where Kelly stands, but it also featured plenty of not-so-family-friendly language when it came to his feelings on the convicted cheaters in Houston.

Of course, the episode came after Joe and the Dodgers got into a bench-clearing altercation in late July. While MLB chose to point the finger squarely at Kelly as the person that escalated things against Astros batter, he confirmed that he too was a victim in the fracas.



A victim of body shaming.

The reliever explained that Houston’s manager wasn’t very nice to him earlier in the inning.

They have a manager on their side, verbatim, yelling at me saying, ‘Get your little skinny ass on the mound.’ So my cuss words get eight games and his cuss words get zero? He’s cussing me at me and he’s body shaming me. He’s a bully. He’s calling me skinny. Imagine if he was calling me fat. I take offense to that. Dusty, that hurts my feelings, you’re calling me skinny. That’s not nice. Don’t do that. That’s not very Major League Baseball-like of you to do that.

Spill the tea, JK.

Fans may remember a moment where Joe was covering first base on a ground out in the inning. In that sequence, Michael Brantley of the Astros stepped on Kelly at the bag and Joe was slow to get back to the mound. Well, Houston manager Dusty Baker took exception and opted to be rude.

And that, for the greater part, seemed to be about the only thing Dusty did. He didn’t stop his team from clearing their bench and approaching the Dodgers’ side of the field amid a pandemic of all times. He also didn’t receive punishment for his role in escalating the situation between two teams with bad blood.

Kelly had his eight game suspension reduced to five after an appeal hearing — a hearing that was, in fact, held back as MLB officials awaited the release of this episode of the podcast. Still, Joe feels the system failed. And he feels strongly about being called skinny.

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Clint Pasillas

Clint Pasillas has been writing, blogging, and podcasting about the Los Angeles Dodgers since 2008. Under Clint's leadership as the Lead Editor, Dodgers Nation has grown into one of the most read baseball sites in the world with millions of unique visitors per month. Find him online on Twitter/X or his YouTube channel!

6 Comments

  1. Must be nice to have friends in high places. I know Dusty, really I do. He’s not a very good manager and Manfred isn’t a good commissioner and they’re good for each other. They both stick out like a bad bunch of politicians. May they all get what’s coming to them.

  2. LOL…Baby Joe is such a whiner. He throws at the Astros trying to end guys careers and then talks smack to Correa, at which point Correa gets upset and looks at Kelly like he is going to kick his butt and Baby Joe runs to the dugout with his skinny little tail between his legs. Dusty is an old school manager with little tolerance for whiny baby millennials whose mouths write checks their butts can’t cash. Fits perfect with the Kings of Chocking (Dodgers). They choke every year and look for excuses for not winning it all. They just lack that winner’s instinct and don’t have the fortitude of a champion.

  3. Oh come on now…”Say it isn’t soooo Joooooe!” you’re upset because he said “‘Get your little skinny ass on the mound.’…in fact I read he had a few EXPLETIVES mixed in there???? When I had a ‘ little skinny ass” years ago I would have thought that a complement! I feel for Dusty he’s taking all that grief for something he had no part of!

  4. Personally i hope Backer chokes on one of those tooth picks he puts in that mouth trap of a mouth they coddle this guy and rave about his managing which isn’t that good.

  5. I love that we have a guy who can throw one-hundred-mile-an-hour fastballs at these cheaters. “End someone’s career”? Yeah, imagine the young careers snuffed out by their selfish, criminal choices. Guys who were running out of time on their careers, one last chance to produce, and these fu8ks snuff that chance out by pouncing on pitches like their at the Homerun Derby! Disgusting. Excuse me if I don’t have even the most basic level of concern for there careers. Tell that to that pitcher trying to CHANGE careers at 30. The carnage left behind by these crooks is incalculable. SPIT!

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