DETROIT -- Indians manager Terry Francona said he didn't have a problem with Jason Kipnis' response to a fan Saturday night after a 5-4 loss to the Tigers.A Tribe fan who drove up from Cleveland, took to Twitter to vent his frustrations about the loss to Kipnis, team President Mark Shapiro, and his 673 followers. The fan called the team "pathetic" and the loss "embarrassing". It didn't take long for Kipnis to fire back, which caught everyone's attention since Kipnis has over 100,000 followers.
In a sampling of social media, most backed Kipnis but others supported the fan due to Kipnis' choice of language.Kipnis didn't have much to say about the matter in the clubhouse on Sunday."Nope. Not a story and we're not talking about it. It's not a story and don't make it into one," he said.Terry Francona, who is not on Twitter, said that he had been told about Kipnis' tweet and read it. He also said that he mostly did not have a problem with it."Besides the (use of the expletive word) I thought he cares. I thought we played our asses off too. That was a heartbreaking loss for us. I didn't think it was pathetic."I'm probably the last person not to tell a guy to say (expletive) but he shows he cares about us winning. I think as difficult as a loss can be for me, I was no less proud of our effort. It hurts but if anything that's where the loyalty and that stuff grows because we're going to do it together."In his two seasons with the Indians, Francona said the only time he had to talk to a player about social media was former reliever Chris Perez last year. Perez was known during his tenure with the Indians for having his share of controversial tweets.Francona also realizes that the times are continuing to change. Athletes are more accessible than ever due to social media, which can be a double-edged sword as we saw with the Kipnis exchange on Saturday night. However, it also showed that athletes do read tweets and it might be far-fetched to expect them to turn a blind eye.Added Francona: "I don't think you sacrifice your principles because times are changing, but they are. From your guy's standpoint, I remember the rules where you need two sources. Now if a guy sneezes it gets tweeted. Some of it is good, some of it not just like everything else."The fan did try to curry some favor from the fans by tweeting "remember when I came all the way to Detroit to support the Indians at Comerica and Jason Kipnis called me an idiot?" but most responded back by saying he deserved it while asking what he expected Kipnis to say?
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