Alex Bregman is poking the bear once again.
You'll remember how Bregman's 2018 season ended: The Houston Astros third baseman trolled Boston Red Sox pitcher Nathan Eovaldi on Instagram during the American League Championship Series, only to have his team flame out in a 4-1 series loss. (Bregman hit .133 in the series, by the way.)
But Bregman has moved onto the 2019 season -- and once again is placing the Red Sox in his sights.
Here's what the 24-year-old said about the Houston-Boston rivalry on a recent episode of the "Going Deep with Chad and JT" podcast:
They got the better of us. A few of the guys on our team were banged up. That’s not an excuse. They played really well, played really good baseball. They’re well-coached. They've got a ton of good players.
But after watching the Patriots win, watching the Red Sox beat us last year -- there's no other city that I'd like to beat this year more than Boston.
You can't fault Bregman for this take: The Red Sox are the defending World Series champions, after all. To be the best, you have to beat the best.
But the All-Star's desire to knock the Sox off also is a little personal, it appears.
"We just did a reading of mean tweets from my YouTube channel -- they're all from Boston fans," he added. "Brutal."
For their part, the Red Sox aren't staying above the fray of a little trash talk, though they were slightly more subtle in their approach.
To celebrate Eovaldi's 29th birthday, the Sox could have posted any of his highlights from the 2018 season, but to choose a strikeout of Bregman? No chance that was a coincidence.
We're all in on a Red Sox-Astros rivalry. The clubs have squared off in back-to-back postseasons, with the winner going on to a capture a World Series title both times.
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Boston and Houston are two of the front-runners to win the 2019 World Series, so we could see Round 3 in October.
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