Mets fans turn into conspiracy theorists, claim pitcher used ears to cheat

In what is being called #EarGate on Twitter, Mets fans are presenting their wild claims that San Diego Padres pitcher Joe Musgrove used his ears to eliminate their team from the playoffs. Really.

Mets fans are understandably perturbed by the outcome of their short-lived postseason stint — the first since 2016 — as they lament the outcome in the wake of a heartbreaking loss to the San Diego Padres in a best of 3 wild card series. The reason for their loss, in their minds, is surprising, however: They believe the San Diego Padres starting pitcher, Joe Musgrove, somehow utilized his ears in orchestrating their defeat. Let me clarify.

It wasn’t Musgrove’s ears themselves, but rather the suspicion that they were exceptionally shiny. Fans — and apparently New York Mets Manager Buck Showalter as well — suspect that the source of Joe Musgrove’s magic was in fact held on the pitcher’s ears. I mention Buck Showalter because in the 6th inning, Showalter asked umpires to check Joe Musgrove for foreign substances that might be helping him. Showalter’s reasoning was the fact that Joe Musgrove’s spin rates on his pitches were up from his normal averages.

For those not in the know about these things, spin rates determine how dramatically a ball moves after it is thrown. For a two-seam fastball, for example, it can create a sinking and/or arm-side horizontal “run” as it’s called to add further movement to a ball making it even harder to hit, depending on the direction a particular pitcher’s spin, creating the movement effect.

In 2021, Major League Baseball began a program of inspecting pitchers for foreign substances after every inning they pitch in response to a scandal on the topic of ‘sticky stuff’ being used by pitchers to make their pitching more effective. This was a topic championed by former Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer. Bauer was the one who asked the MLB to ‘enforce the rules they have on the books’ and whose adamant and very public stance on the whole matter shined a bright spotlight on the scandal, resulting in significant embarrassment for the MLB. This prompted a shot across the bow against Bauer, who was ultimately martyred for the cause on trumped up charges of assaulting a woman with whom he was intimately involved. This gave the MLB the pretext they needed to levy a draconian 2 year suspension ( starting in 2022, mind you ) against Bauer, a devastating penalty that might just see him unable to play professional baseball ever again. But I digress.

Mets fans are even saying that the MLB directed their umpires to ignore any evidence, verging even further into conspiracy theory territory. Mets fans seem so certain from the pictures they’ve collected and the view on their TVs at home that Musgrove was cheating, and are incensed that he was not thrown out of the game as a result. And in that desired schadenfreude you find the real motivation behind their accusations: jealousy and rage.

It would’ve pleased Mets fans — even though the game was likely already out of reach for their team at that point — to see Musgrove forced off the mound, likely damaging his career in the process and resulting in a suspension that would hurt the San Diego Padres’ chances at a World Series title. It is the classic ‘crabs in a bucket’ syndrome. If they can’t prosper, then neither should anyone else.

To the dismay of Mets fans, popular YouTuber Jomboy Media took to Twitter and YouTube to shoot down any hopes that their current favorite man to hate, Joe Musgrove, was cheating at all. And he does so in humorous fashion with his lipreading and commentary on the matter. Watch it below.

In other words, there’s nothing here. Better luck next year, Mets. You gave it the ol’ college try, but you weren’t hitting anyone else last night, either.

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