White Sox’s Keynan Middleton called Carlos Correa ‘cheater’ after striking him out

White Sox reliever Keynan Middleton lives by a code — and Carlos Correa violated it.

Correa, of course, was caught up in the Astros cheating scandal, where a trash can clanging from the clubhouse alerted hitters to the signs the opposing catchers sent to their pitchers.

Therefore, Middleton took extra delight in striking out Correa, closing out the 6-4 victory for the White Sox over the Twins on Wednesday.

“I knew I was going to face Correa, and I don’t like him. So it was kind of cool,” he said, according to NBC Sports Chicago.

“I like that. I enjoyed that a lot. … I mean, he’s a cheater.”

Correa got some measure of revenge for the remarks, slugging a 377-foot home run in the top of the sixth inning of Thursday’s contest against the White Sox and then driving in a run as part of a five-run 12th inning the Minnesota’s 7-3 win.

“I’ve heard worse,” Correa told reporters before Thursday’s series finale. “I’m just glad he’s doing good and he’s playing good and he can take care of his family.

Correa, for his part, probably took more responsibility for the cheating scandal than any of his Astros teammates.

“There’s no excuse for that. We were wrong for everything we did in 2017,” Correa said in 2020.

“It’s not what we stand for. It’s not what we want to portray as an organization. We’re definitely wrong about all of that and we really feel really sorry. We know we affected careers. We know we affected the game in some way. And looking back, it was just bad. We wish we would’ve stopped it at the time.

“We didn’t, and for that we’re paying the price now. It’s not where we want to be coming into the season but we have to take responsibility for our actions.”

Correa had a wild offseason this past winter, ultimately signing with the Twins for six years and $200 million after his deal with the Mets fell through over injury concerns.