You can’t help but question the umpiring after Game 5 of the NLDS between the Giants and Dodgers. And it’s a shame.
It’s an epic rivalry born in 1890, one that has spanned 2,521 games. The rivalry reached its arguable zenith at Oracle Park Thursday night -- and through 53 outs and 278 pitches -- the showdown lived up to the billing. Until first-base umpire Gabe Morales had to strip baseball, its fans, the Giants and the Dodgers of a legitimate ending.
With a swift pump of his fist on a Wilmer Flores check swing, Morales promptly, and incorrectly, put an end to a magical Giants season by sealing a 2-1 Dodgers victory.
This should be an article about Camilo Doval, the young fireballing right-hander who entered in the eighth inning to a eruption of a cheer from the Oracle Park crowd, only to let a tie game slip from his grasp in the ninth.
Thursday should be remembered as a night where Cody Bellinger lifted his Dodgers to a win of immense proportions with his ninth-inning single to right field to drive home Justin Turner.
You should be reading about Logan Webb’s seven stellar innings and Darin Ruf’s monstrous 452-foot game-tying home run, the longest of the 2021 postseason.
Instead, the 2021 NLDS Game 5 will likely be remembered as the game where Morales robbed the Giants a fighting chance to keep their season alive against Max Scherzer, who was summoned for the save to send the Dodgers to the next round.
Earlier in the game, home plate umpire Doug Eddings raised eyebrows when he called a couple of pitches strikes that were out of the zone, ridding Kris Bryant of a possible walk.
Eddings was the same umpire who called two questionable strikes on Ruf and another to Buster Posey during crucial back-to-back at-bats in the bottom of the eighth inning. The lack of zone consistency was a talking point all night, too.
Baseball deserves better. We all deserve better. The Giants, for sure, deserve better.
But for now, we’ll have to just wonder, what if? And it’s a disgrace.