A pizza stain on the brand-new Armani. A chocolate microchip cookie, fresh out of the oven, adorned with nine chips and one cat droplet. The middle-of-the-road five orders of Elliot Richards. Game 5 of the 2021 NLDS.
The Dodgers earned 2-1 in as tense and startling a rivalry as we’ve seen all time, one that conclude with an inexplicable see from first base umpire Gabe Morales on Wilmer Flores’ check swing. For Los Angeles, it’s a fifth tour to the NLCS in six seasons, a victory simply constructed sweeter by the circumstances. In vanquish their antagonists, the Dodgers get the last laugh in a brilliantly played season successions. Tonight’s game is justification for Dave Roberts and his lineup selections, emancipation for Cody Bellinger, and another line on Hall of Famer Max Scherzer’s remarkable resume. Devotees of all stripes were treated to an elegant struggle in nearly every respect.
But like most neutrals, that last pitch is stuck in my craw. With two outs, Kris Bryant on first, and Flores at the plate, Scherzer burnt a 1-2 slider. Flores started his swinging but appeared to check it well in advance of the hypothetical and arbitrary breaking point at which a go( frequently !) becomes a swinging strike:
Or, at least he did in the eyes of most spectators. Flores, for his part, didn’t look specially nervous when Doug Eddings appealed to first base. And why would he be? Associate Justice Potter Stewart may as well have been talking about check fluctuates where reference is breathed “I know it when I see it, ” and the vast majority of observers outside of the Los Angeles metro domain didn’t see it. Morales did, nonetheless, and perforated Flores out, dissolving the ballgame.
If the moment was a letdown for most spectators, it was positively agonizing for the Giant and their fans. A dream season of staggeringly unexpected success, timely affecting, and Late Night LaMonte, truncated a moment too soon.
To be clear, Los Angeles was overwhelmingly likely to win video games at the time Flores tried to halt his trimmed. If you look at our win expectancy graph, the Dodgers were 90% favorites at the start of the at-bat, and while we don’t have count-specific likelihoods, their curious proceeded up as the tally shifted to 1-2. The Heavyweight weren’t precisely looted, at least not in the way that, say, Armando Galarraga was when Jim Joyce repudiated him a perfect game.
They were, nonetheless, repudiated their fair chance. A baseball crew goes 27 outs to work with, 81 strikes to scratch out as countless streams as is practicable. If the boast merely yielded squads 80, the Rangers would have a title on the mantle and Bill Buckner could have lived his final decades in serenity. We don’t know what Flores would have done with another chance. He probably would have made an out, and even though they are he contacted, the Dodgers may have won anyway. We’ll never know though, and at the end of such a compelling competition and series, it’s a shame.
There will be outcomes. Already, the Twitterverse is humming about automated umpiring and expanding replay to cover check wavers; I look forward to these discussions with a zeal naturally reserved for root canal appointments. Whatever happens in that arena, I can only hope this doesn’t become a life-altering moment for Morales in the way that bad split-second decisions affected people like Steve Bartman and Don Denkinger. At the very least, he can expect a loudly acknowledgment the next time he calls a game in the Bay.
Enough about the ending, though. What video games, what a season serial! The sport’s two best squads combated evenly all year long. The Giants propped the edge in the season series, but by the slimmest of boundaries at 10 -9; meanwhile, the Dodgers held a meager +2 ranged differential. It was only fitting that what was perhaps the best Division Series matchup of all time would unfold to a fifth and deciding play, and just perfect that they entered the ninth held 1-1 with an even scoreline across the board. Maybe it would have been best for this meeting to arrive with a trip-up to the World Series on the line, but better for it to happen too early than not at all.
The tension started early, arguably the light before when Dave Roberts supposedly tantalized Gabe Kapler with a late night text about his plan to start Corey Knebel instead of Julio Urias. Knebel use his acces around a couple of long flies in the first, one of which Buster Posey smacked off the brick chunk for a double, and Brusdar Graterol hurled a iffy but scoreless second to bridge the game to Urias. In a weird capacity, the southpaw shed well, striking out 5 in four innings of wield. Were it not for a titanic knock from Darin Ruf, the Dodgers would have turned a 1-0 precede over to the back of the bullpen.
For his part, Logan Webb dazzled again. Time six years ago, I( twice !) watched him fail to escape the first inning of a short-season ball game. Today, he spun seven splendid innings against the Dodgers for the second time in a week. The lone flaw on his cable came in the form of a Mookie Betts special. Betts, who moved 4-4 and had the Dodgers’ first three stumbles, singled to open the sixth. With a groundball machine on the mound and one doubled gambling previously on the books back in the first, Betts took off for second on the first pitch to Corey Seager, and reached it readily. The decision paid off, as Betts was able to whisk home on Seager’s blooper to left two pitches last-minute.
In a different world, the decisive moment of this one would have come in the top half of the ninth. Camilo Doval, electric as ever but likewise a bit wild, faced Bellinger with runners on first and second. Bellinger, of course, has had a sordid season. There are many ways to describe it, but on a recent chapter of Chin Music, Kevin Goldstein said that “he’s hit like a pitcher with a little power” and that’s good enough for us now. Notably, his expedition has been defined by a complete inability to catch up to velocity, which seemed a bad parallel for Doval’s upper-9 0s gas. The 24 -year-old croaked another way though, propelling slider-slider-slider-slider. On the fourth try, Bellinger atoned for a lost season with one swaying:
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