The World Baseball Classic may not be the best quality of baseball you’ll see all year, but you won’t find as much fun anywhere else on the diamond. On Tuesday night, Puerto Rico beat the Dominican Republic in the first game of the second round for Pool F, snapping the DR’s 11-game WBC win streak in the process and setting Caribeño twitter on fire with hilarious trash talk. The game, which was a rematch of the 2013 WBC Final, went down to the wire, but after some shady umpire calls, the Boricuas celebrated beating their island primos for the first time in 11 years.
The game itself was appropriately fascinating, with the teams trading runs in the first two innings before settling into a pitching showdown; PR’s pitchers combined for 10 strikeouts, while the DR’s four pitchers got 6 Ks.
The heart of Puerto Rico’s team, Yadier Molina, came up big with a sixth inning home run that put the game out of reach for the Dominicans. Molina was also part of the highlight of the night, as Chicago Cubs shortstop Javy Baez hit the no-look tag on Nelson Cruz to end the top of the 8th inning:
The top of the 8th also delivered some controversy, as the home plate umpire called a strike on Carlos Santana that was questionable (if you were a Puerto Rico fan) or a travesty worthy of a coñazo (if you were riding for the DR’s Plátano Power):
Despite not being as crowded as Miami was in round 1, San Diego had vocal turnouts for both sides, and the Puerto Ricans definitely turned up at Petco Park following the win:
As anyone who could have predicted, Twitter was pure flames before, during, and after the game, as the Isleños took over social media for the night. Even Residente threw in his two cents for his homeland after the win:
Of course, Viceland’s The Kid Mero was on the 140s all night, repping for his Dominicanos by raining down insults at the Boricuas:
The lituation didn’t end with Residente or Mero, as Twitter turned into an all-night-long battle between the two island nations, ranging from “mangú vs mofongo” to who’s got the better plátanos.
Check out some of the best burns below:
https://twitter.com/Idonttextback/status/841835647107248130
https://twitter.com/TheLoopyBlogger/status/842029315529310208
At the end of the night, the general sentiment was that, though they may fight and slander ruthlessly, no one loves each other quite in the same way as the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. And also that mad gringos out there are seeing these tweets and feeling lost:
https://twitter.com/KayNicolee_/status/841815177209253888