DETROIT -- White Sox pitcher Michael Kopech deleted tweets from 2013 that included homophobic and racist slurs. Some of the tweets recently were resurfaced by other Twitter users.
"Yeah, I had to delete some stuff," Kopech told the Chicago Sun-Times. "Things I said that were immature and inappropriate; I used some poor language in there. It's unfortunate that I was ever at that point mentally, but it's not who I am now. Yeah, I cleaned some tweets up and tried to get rid of them. But, obviously, people saw them. It's not who I am now and it's not who I want to be. It was something I did in high school, and with everything I've gone through in pro ball the last five seasons, I feel like a big part of my career was maturing. Hate to see it, but it's not who I am anymore."
The 22-year-old Kopech, who made his MLB debut on Tuesday, said the tweets were posted when he was 17.
"Michael has been very upfront about his tweets from high school several years ago," general manager Rick Hahn said in a statement released by the White Sox. "He has taken responsibility and apologized for his offensive and inappropriate word choices at the time, but he has stressed that those careless words do not reflect who he is today. It is certainly true that they don't reflect the young man we know as a maturing, growing and developing member of our organization."
Kopech is the White Sox No. 2 prospect, according to MLB Pipeline, and No. 13 prospect in all of baseball. He allowed three hits and no runs in two innings in his rain-shortened debut against the Twins.