The San Francisco Giants won 107 games in the regular season to barely beat out the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West title. Along the way, the Giants got helped by a blown check-swing call in a game against the Dodgers. So, it was truly ironic that San Francisco's dream season ended on a totally botched check-swing call against Los Angeles.
With two outs and one on in the bottom of the ninth inning in Thursday's Game 5 of the NLDS, first-base umpire Gabe Morales rung up Wilmer Flores against Max Scherzer on a check-swing call. It gave the Dodgers a 2-1 victory and a spot in the NLCS against the Atlanta Braves.
Only, Flores clearly didn't swing:
Nah man, no swing pic.twitter.com/AKIDXE6Bdk
— CJ Fogler AKA Perc70 #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) October 15, 2021
The Giants and their fans were left stunned by the result. Even though Flores still would have been down 1-2 in the count with a correct call, you never know what could have happened if he wasn't called out.
After the debacle, Giants manager Gabe Kapler could only speak in disappointment about the way the season ended, via Michael Wagaman of The Associated Press:
“It looked like he didn't go. I mean, that was my take on it,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said.
“I just think it's just a disappointing way to end,” he said.
Kapler added: “It's heightened on the last play of the game … in this case a check-swing.”
“That's going to be the thing that is talked about quite a bit and I understand why,” he said. “I just don't know how much sense it makes to, for us, on our side, to pick that apart. I don't know how much, how helpful it's going to be.”
It was an absolutely brutal way for a dominant team to go out. After going up 2-1 in the series, the Giants faded at the plate, scoring just three runs total over the last three games. Losing in the playoffs always leaves a team with a bitter taste in its mouth, but this one is going to sting even more than usual for a long time.
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