White Sox fans who earnestly believe Yankees' Gerrit Cole drilled top prospect are out of their minds

There's a separate line at the Pearly Gates for anyone who's ever posted an extremely weird Gerrit Cole tweet, and Tuesday night unfortunately brought us a riotously stupid new level of Yankee Hate Engagement Bait. As it turns out, a solid chunk of White Sox Twitter — and former Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Seth McClung? — might have mercury poisoning.

Cole, it's finally clear, actually is behind Carlos Rodón despite starting his rehab assignment earlier than expected. While Rodón will be taking Elmer Rodríguez's spot in the rotation next week after escaping his latest outing in good health, Cole is clearly working on things, attempting to land breaking balls and mostly filling the zone to hasten innings, no matter the results.

At this point, he wants up-downs. He wants velocity gains. And he wants to throw strikes. As dispiriting as it can be to watch this starter fastballs routinely get ambushed, this process is more about building than it is succeeding.

And that, among other things, is why Tuesday's discourse was so insane.

When a Yankee is involved — especially Cole, for whatever reason — people can trick themselves into believing absolutely anything. Either that, or they know there's no surer way to get disingenuous engagement from a bunch of reactive goons who have nothing to add to the conversation than to paint the Yankees in a negative light.

In the Realm of the Internet, Cole is paper soft (despite recovering from an elbow injury that eventually led to surgery to pitch in the World Series and dominate). Cole doesn't have the temperament to succeed in MLB, despite likely being a future Hall of Famer. Cole can't handle the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry (Ok, they might have a point there).

The worst part? Some of the folks who hopped on Tuesday's hate train probably actually believe that Cole was so frustrated by giving up a home run to White Sox top prospect Caleb Bonemer that he drilled him in the shoulder/upper back in a later at-bat.

The initial tweets probably don't. They can't. They cannot actually believe that. They're White Sox fans stirring the sh-t and inventing a newfound rivalry, one that they probably think has existed for years. But a lot of the quoters and repliers actually seem to believe that Cole, midway through a tuneup rehab session, could not mentally handle allowing a home run (despite the fact that he's allowed six in 18 2/3 innings so far, clearly unaffected by the previous five).

White Sox fans destroying Yankees' Gerrit Cole missed the real enemy

In McClung's case, he said he had "no context and didn't need it" to know what was going through Cole's head. I know Yankees poisoning when I see it! Seek help!

Notably, there was also an actual toddler on the mound Tuesday in Framber Valdez. He's even in the White Sox division. He threw his first four-seamer of the year to nail Trevor Story after surrendering back-to-back home runs by the Red Sox. And White Sox Twitter still decided to be in their feels about Gerrit Cole, Surgical Rehab Edition, losing grip and smoking Caleb Bonemer, the literal last thing he wanted to do.

Earlier in the very same game, Cole paused the game to express his concern for his young catcher getting injured by a foul tip! But certainly, rivalry lights burn so brightly that he had no regard for human life and wanted to take Bonemer's head off, though he happily settled for the shoulder instead. Grow up. Move back to Planet Earth. We're waiting for you.

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