If you watched Game 5 of the National League Division Series between the Giants and Dodgers on Thursday night, you know exactly how it ended.
Los Angeles advanced to the NL Championship Series with a controversial 2-1 win over San Francisco at Oracle Park. Wilmer Flores certainly looked as though he checked his swing on an 0-2 pitch from Max Scherzer, but first base umpire Gabe Morales rung him up and ended the Giants’ hopes at the Fall Classic.
It was painfully obvious Flores’ bat never fully crossed home plate, but Morales didn’t want to admit the call was wrong. In fact, he didn’t want to answer the question at all.
“Check swings are one of the hardest calls we have,” Morales told reporters after the game, per NBC Sports Bay Area. “I don’t have the benefit of multiple camera angles when I’m watching it live. When it happened live I thought he went, so that’s why I called it a swing.”
Crew chief Ted Barrett didn’t offer much clarity, either.
“Yeah, no, we, yeah, yeah, he doesn’t want to say,” he told reporters.
Not a good look.
The play was unreviewable, so there was nothing the Giants could do except sit back and watch the Dodgers celebrate another trip to the NLCS.
