The Boston Red Sox “mutually parted ways” with manager Alex Cora on Tuesday after MLB’s report on the Astros cheating scandal mentioned Cora nearly a dozen times.

Cora served as Astros bench coach when Houston was operating its sign-stealing scheme during the 2017 World Series season, and Carlos Beltran was a member of that Astros team — heavily involved in the scheme as well.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, Cora’s 2019 press conference from Boston’s London Series with the Yankees couldn’t have looked more suspicious.

Speaking to reporters after the Red Sox’s two losses in London, Cora — with a pronounced wink — credited the Yankees’ signing of 42-year-old “special advisor” Carlos Beltran as the team’s most important acquisition.

Cora said:

“It wasn’t a good weekend on the field. That’s a good offensive team. We know that. They’re a lot better than last year. Their attention to detail is phenomenal. I was joking with somebody that their biggest free-agent acquisition is Carlos Beltran. (wink). I know how it works. He’s helping a lot. They’re paying attention to details, and we have to clean our details. It was eye-opening, the last few days — from top to bottom. And I’m not saying devices — all that stuff. It’s just stuff that the game will dictate and will scream at people. And he’s right there. Throughout the evening, I was looking and I saw it. And right now, they’re a lot better than us.”

I mean … that doesn’t seem great.

The fact that Cora was so quick to credit a dude in an advisory role as some secret to the Yankees’ success and the now-ironic, unsolicited use of “devices,” it’s incredibly easy to watch that video and conclude that Cora was alluding to Beltran’s role as one of the masterminds behind the Astros’ trash-can-whacking, sign-stealing scheme.

At the time, reporters took the comments as Cora simply complimenting Beltran for his ability to detect tipped pitches.

Aw, how nice.

Beltran has since been hired as Mets manager, and it’s unclear if his role in the scandal will cost him that job as well.

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