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Gabe Morales' check swing call was an inexcusable way to end the Giants' season - San Francisco Chronicle

Gabe Morales' check swing call was an inexcusable way to end the Giants' season - San Francisco Chronicle

Gabe Morales' check swing call was an inexcusable way to end the Giants' season - San Francisco Chronicle
Oct 15, 2021 1 min, 43 secs

San Francisco Giants' Wilmer Flores, right, is called out swinging in front of Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Will Smith for the final out of the ninth inning of Game 5 of a baseball National League Division Series Thursday, Oct.

Credit the umpires for answering some tough questions about the finish of Thursday night’s Game 5 of the National League Division Series, but in the end, nothing changed in the public’s eye.

Wilmer Flores, a standout for the Giants all season, was down to his last strike with a runner on first base.

Scherzer delivered, Flores checked his swing, home-plate umpire Doug Eddings asked for some help — it’s always the first-base umpire with a right-handed batter at the plate— and Gabe Morales gave the “out” sign.

Not that they cared, dancing wildly about the middle of the field at Oracle Park, having finally caught the Giants after the most memorable division race in history.

“Check swings are one of the hardest calls we have,” Morales told pool reporter John Shea of The Chronicle after the game.

I lean more toward Scott Ostler’s point of view, writing that because it’s a checked swing, it’s not a swing, so don’t call it one.

For Morales to make that call, right then, he left behind a stench that, for Giants fans and the game of baseball, won’t ever go away.

Widely ridiculed umpire Angel Hernandez was assigned to this series, and worked the plate in Game 2, so, hell, anything goes.

1-for-10, Darin Ruf 1-for-11 and Wilmer Flores 1-for-12.

They didn’t have their own Mookie Betts, who hit .450 for for the Dodgers, played a sterling right field and was unstoppable in Game 5, going 4-for-4 with a stolen base.

Those three guys were trading off innings with the play-by-play, and it’s so difficult to come in after a long break and get right into the flow of the game.

Bruce Jenkins is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist.

Bruce Jenkins has written for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1973 and has been a sports columnist since 1989

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