Noah Syndergaard owned the Indians. There’s no other way to put it. In a real sense, he dominated them from the mound by carrying a perfect game through five innings, and in the grand digital bazaar of Twitter, he virtually kicked their teeth in.
Let’s run it back.
First, the Indians Twitter account wanted to try and smooth things over with the fanbase. I can’t imagine the amount of dumb garbage they had seen over the last 48 hours heading into the final game of the Mets series. The team sucked, everything was sloppy, and the first place angry fans usually turn to is Twitter. Let’s Go Tribe has roughly one percent of the followers of the official Indians account on Twitter, and even I still have to frequently mute obnoxious trolls. I’d imagine it’s completely unavoidable for the media managers of a team’s account to filter most things out. They truly, unironically, have my pity when the team plays this poorly.
So, in effort to extend an olive branch to a wound-up fanbase, they tweeted this:
It's a long season.
— Cleveland Indians (@Indians) August 22, 2019
We didn't erase an 11.5-game deficit to roll over. We split a series with one of the best teams in MLB at their home ballpark. We lost the last 2 to a fringe postseason team.
We understand your frustration.
Get it out here, but let's renew the perspective. pic.twitter.com/qddlITqsjZ
Good message. Nothing in there is false, and the folks running the account aren’t at fault for what happens on the fiel— hold up did you just call another playing their best baseball of the season a “fringe” playoff team? Uh oh.
Perhaps it’s not an insult on its own — being on the fringe of the playoffs is great considering where the Mets started the season — but there’s no hotter team in baseball in right. Ask any Mets fan and they are probably already making World Series reservations. They’re jacked up on winning juice and gas station pills and nothing is going to stop them at this point. Indians fans were in the same mindset a couple weeks ago — most good teams go through it. Once that level of confidence gets pumping, especially after months of being everyone’s punchline, fans are going to be defensive and ready to buff out their chest at any perceived slight.
Apparently, so is Noah Syndergaard.
When the wind started blowing in Citi Field, the Indians Twitter team put out a lighthearted GIF of a computer flying near the flagpole to show how windy it was. Creative, nobody gets hurt. Right?
WRONG.
Here’s Noah.
Or fire the guy who lost his computer instead. I suggest the social media guy. https://t.co/iwdNdFs7K8
— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) August 23, 2019
Prior to this, he hadn’t tweeted since August 17 so the sudden anger at the Indians social media team seemed a little misplaced. But, oh well, maybe he’s just fiesty since he had to pulled from such a great start early due to the weather.
Then the game ended and the real fireworks started.
We got some FRINGE for you right here, we call it a SWEEP in NYC. #LFGMhttps://t.co/d2OtJLujaz
— Noah Syndergaard (@Noahsyndergaard) August 23, 2019
Oh, right. The Indians insinuated that the Mets might not be confirmed World Series champions in mid-August.
I think I physically cringed when I first saw the tweet, upon realizing how bad the Indians messed up by unnecessarily giving Thor and the Mets fuel to burn. It’s rough, but also kind of hilarious how he picked up on it and 360 windmill dunked on it.
If you look at the replies to the original Indians tweet now, it’s nothing but frothing Mets fans dunking on the Indians, just like their beloved starting pitcher did. And you know what? Good for them. Lord knows I had fun mocking the Twins when the Indians ever so briefly took the AL Central lead. Not to mention one of the best things of this season was Braves fans flooding opposing team’s Twitter mentions with photoshopped images of Tiger Woods every time Atlanta won a series (like they did against the Indians).
Smack talk between fanbases is part of what makes following sports enjoyable. I don’t want to sit in my corner and quietly watch my team while you sit and quietly watch yours. I want to remind you that yours blew an 11.5-game lead. I want your star pitcher to dunk on my team’s Twitter account because they might have slighted his team’s playoff chances.
I’m not so sure the Indians Twitter account took it quite the same way, because their response was simply the post to the score with nothing further. Oh well. It’s fun, and with any luck, the Indians will ultimately have the last laugh and we can look back at this week where the Mets have been good and realize how weird a time it was.