An open letter to the players of the Cleveland Indians

I understand that you’re playing against the World Series Champions. I understand that you’re dealing with one of the best pitching staffs in the league. I understand that you’ve dealt with two games on the road to start the series.

I don’t care.

Wake the fuck up.

No, you don’t owe anything to this fanbase because you’ve given everything over the last three seasons to us. No, you don’t owe anything to the Dolans, who for years failed to give you the support that you needed to win. No, you don’t owe anything to the league, which consistently ignores you in favor of larger markets.

Do it for yourselves.

Prove wrong every idiot that tells you how often you lose series-deciding games. You’re sitting in that spot now. It’s time to win three in a row.

Prove wrong every moron that doubted your ability to hit the Astros and blast off against them in game three. It’s at home; show the crowd what it looks like to get angry and strike back.

Prove Dennis Eckersley wrong about essentially everything he’s said this entire series, please, and I understand that you haven’t been listening to him because you’re on the field but it’s been really bad you guys.

If you aren’t convinced that it’s time to put together a consistent and dominant offensive effort, here’s a tweet from a man who has covered your team for several years.

You didn’t come through.

I’m sorry if that’s not something that you want to read, but these are the exact players we, as fans, wanted to have at the plate.

You blew it.

If that’s how you’re going to play the rest of the series, then yes — you deserve to lose.

I understand it’s not as easy as just deciding that you want to hit Gerrit Cole’s ridiculous breaking ball that shows up here and is suddenly there and went 90+ MPH the entire time. I know that it’s not as simple as squaring up a couple of extra balls you put into play. I get that it isn’t as straightforward as getting to the bullpen and bombing a few tired nobodies because they aren’t on the postseason roster.

At the same time the Indians have one of the best pitching staffs in all of baseball. They have some of the most talented position players that the game has ever seen at their age. They have proven that they are capable, over the last few seasons, of going on amazing, unexpected runs to turn everything around.

That being said: Six. Hits. That’s not tonight. That’s both games combined. Carlos Carrasco pitched an excellent game tonight, and he doesn’t deserve that little support. I apologize to him personally that it’s taken so long to get to his performance. He went more than five innings and allowed only two runs. He walked one and while he only stuck out three he never looked out of control. Francona pulled him for Andrew Miller at that point. Miller gave up a one-run single that Melky Cabrera turned into a two-run double. If you disagree with this, please tell me how you became an official scorer of Major League Baseball, and how it is that everyone you know is so overwhelmingly incompetent.

Trevor Bauer came in after that. He got out of the inning with loaded bases, gave up a dinger to Alex Bregman, and that’s how we got to the score that we had. The Indians lost.

They lost to an objectively better team, not only on the field, but from a managerial standpoint and also in the front office.

If you don’t agree with those assessments, prove me wrong on Monday at home.

If you don’t think you have a lack of desire to win, show me why Major League Baseball was wrong to put you in the time slots where no one would watch because they knew you would get swept.

If you don’t agree with my belief that you’re just apathetic at this point and want to cash in on your upcoming contracts, give Mike Clevinger some kind of support tomorrow while he is on the mound. Three hits is not enough to win any games in the postseason unless you have mid-nineties Greg Maddux on the mound. For what it’s worth, that only worked for the Braves once.

Come out and play like you care on Monday. We’ve talked extensively on this website about how boring the team has looked all season because the team knew it would win the division. Boring teams don’t win in the playoffs. Prove us wrong and show us that you’re actually worth watching. For once.

I’m obviously angry, but at SB Nation we’re fans, not journalists. I’m allowed to be mad. I want to be proven wrong. I’m almost certain that I won’t be, and all of the idiots calling for Francona to get fired are going to look like they have the right idea on Monday afternoon.

Please, for the love of god, make me look like the fucking idiot that I am.