In a World Series finish that had Major League Baseball debating long into the night, the Los Angeles Dodgers survived a controversial wedged-ball ruling in Game 6 against the Toronto Blue Jays to keep their repeat championship hopes alive. The play sparked Buck Showalter’s sharp MLB critique, as the former New York Mets manager questioned how a league of this scale could allow a stadium design flaw to influence a postseason outcome. The MLB wall padding issue and the tense Game 6 finish between the Dodgers and Blue Jays converged in a ninth inning that left Rogers Centre stunned.

The Blue Jays trailed 3-1 when Roki Sasaki gave up a drive from Addison Barger that skipped to the left center wall and stuck under the padding. Umpires ruled a ground rule double, which placed Myles Straw on third and Barger on second instead of tying the game. That decision protected the Dodgers lead and it sparked an immediate debate over why stadium design can change October outcomes. The Foul Territory Network took to their X (formerly known as Twitter) account with a clip of the manager explaining the end of Friday night’s Game 6 and why MLB should not allow that gap.

“We got a multi-billion dollar industry. Why can't we get fields where stuff [padding] goes all the way to the bottom, and that can't happen?”

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Showalter, who also managed the New York Yankees, Arizona Diamondbacks, Texas Rangers, and Baltimore Orioles, said the solution is simple — a championship should never depend on an inch of exposed padding. His words carried weight given his decades of managerial experience and the widespread belief among Toronto fans that Myles Straw would have scored had the ball stayed live. That run would have tied the game at 3-3 with no outs and shifted all the pressure back on Los Angeles to keep its season alive.

Instead, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called for Tyler Glasnow, and the right hander got the final three outs before Kiké Hernández threw out the trailing runner for a game ending double play. The Dodgers forced a winner take all Game 7 and they did it while a ex-Mets manager reminded MLB that it can afford to standardize every outfield wall. Baseball can live with quirks. It should not live with a fixable wall deciding the World Series.