The San Francisco Giants won't play for the pennant.
The Los Angeles Dodgers won Game 5 of the National League Division Series at Oracle Park on Thursday night, ending their bitter rivals' season with a 2-1 victory.
Los Angeles will play the Atlanta Braves in the National League Championship Series beginning Saturday, giving the Dodgers a chance to repeat as World Series champions for the first time in franchise history.
San Francisco's season ended on a controversial check swing. Wilmer Flores, representing the game-winning run, checked his swing on the final pitch of the game.
First-base umpire Gabe Morales ruled it a swinging strike three, and the Giants lost.
It was not the first missed call at the plate this season to upset one side of one of baseball's most historic rivalries.
On July 22, the Giants beat the Dodgers 5-3 at Dodger Stadium. Los Angeles walked in the game-tying run in the top of the ninth when San Francisco slugger Darin Ruf's swing clearly crossed home plate.
The Giants won the regular-season series, and the National League West, by a single game.
Thursday night marked the conclusion of a season-long back-and-forth between the longtime foes, and Game 5 neatly encapsulated it.
The Giants and Dodgers, whose rivalry dates back to when they both called New York City home, were the two winningest teams in baseball this regular season. San Francisco won more games (107) than any other in franchise history, while Los Angeles matched its own franchise record (106).
The Dodgers opened the scoring in the top of the sixth inning on Corey Seager's RBI double, but the Giants answered right back when Ruf homered to deep center field to make it 1-1.
But Los Angeles got the last laugh, as 2019 National League Most Valuable Player Cody Bellinger continued his emergence from a season-long slump into one of the Dodgers' best postseason hitters. His RBI double in the top of the ninth inning was the difference at Oracle Park.
The Giants and Dodgers had never played one another in a playoff series prior to this year, although the Giants had twice eliminated the Dodgers in best-of-three tiebreakers for the NL pennant (1951 and 1962). Now, the Dodgers' revenge sets up an offseason of questions in San Francisco.
Will pending free-agent franchise cornerstones Buster Posey and Brandon Belt return in orange and black? What about Cy Young contender Kevin Gausman, or trade-deadline acquisition Kris Bryant?
No matter the answers, the Giants will have to live with an abrupt ending to their storybook season.
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