SorryWatch is still in recovery from Lance Armstrong‘s and Ray Rice‘s godawful apologies. However, at the urging of a longtime baseball fan and blogger who was not authorized to speak on the record, SorryWatch agreed to wade into the Houston Astros mess. A mess of the team’s own making. A mess that doubled and tripled like a wad of fermenting dough, thanks to executives’ decision to lie and obfuscate about it. When their lies were called out, they opted not to apologize; instead, they chose to up the awfulness with a sprinkling of shitty apologies like poppy seeds except mouse turds and the bakery should be shut down by the Department of Health. Snarly does not know why she is suddenly mired in a bread metaphor. Maybe because The Great British Bake Show is a balm in these troubled times.

Brandon. Brent. Chad. Chet. Blake. Brant. Brett. Chip.

The story, as told by badass Sports Illustrated reporter Stephanie Apstein: After winning the pennant, the Astros were partying in their locker room when Assistant General Manager Brandon Taubman spotted three female reporters, one of whom was wearing a purple bracelet for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Taubman began to scream at them, “Thank God we got Osuna! I’m so fucking glad we got Osuna!”

An odd cheer, given that pitcher Roberto Osuna “had been, by Baseball Reference’s calculations and any intelligent observer’s assessment,” as Apstein pointed out, “the least valuable Astro that night.” Osuna had just allowed a two-run homer at the top of the ninth inning that tied the game. By these metrics, Snarly could have been the most valuable Astro that night, and she is a middle-aged woman in New York City.

The backstory, which (again) Apstein provides (again, read her story here): The Astros had acquired Osuna from the Blue Jays toward the end of the pitcher’s 75-game suspension. He’d been charged with assaulting the mother of his three-year-old. She refused to return to Canada from Mexico to testify against him, so prosecutors ultimately dropped the charges, and Osuna merely had to agree to counseling and to stay away from the woman in question. For the Astros, the price for Osuna was right, since few teams wanted the PR hit of hiring this dude. Many Astros’ fans, as well as anti-domestic-violence advocates, were dismayed.

But why did Taubman start howling about Osuna to three female reporters, anyway? “None of those women were talking to him,” Apstein said. “They weren’t even talking about Osuna. Taubman brought him up.”

When Apstein asked the Astros’ PR office if she could interview Taubman about what, precisely, he meant with his banshee-like shrieking, they refused to make him available. They also told Apstein not to write about what happened. She did anyway. The Astros then issued a statement: