The San Francisco Giants’ season ended in the worst way imaginable: a bad call from the home plate umpire.
The San Francisco Giants entered the final day of the truncated MLB season with a chance of clinching a playoff berth. All they needed was to defeat the rival San Diego Padres and for the Milwaukee Brewers to lose to the St. Louis Cardinals to clinch the eighth seed in the NL-side of the postseason bracket. The Brewers took the “L” on Sunday, meaning that the Giants were one step away from reaching the playoffs.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for the Giants, as they lost 5-4 to the Padres, but it happened in the worst possible way. In the bottom of the ninth inning, outfielder Austin Slater faced a 2-2 count with two outs on the board. Slater looked at a Trevor Rosenthal pitch below the knee, an obvious ball. Instead, home plate umpire Rob Drake called it a strike, and thus ended San Francisco’s season and allowed the Brewers to make the postseason.
A season should never end on a bad strike call
Slater was in utter disbelief at the call, while Giants manager Gabe Kapler and a variety of other players can be heard yelling at Drake from the dugout. You can’t fault San Francisco from feeling like they were jobbed, because they were!
The Giants entered the weekend series against the Padres with a 29-29 record. All they needed to do was to win one of the three contests to clinch their first playoff berth since 2016. Unfortunately for them, they couldn’t pull it off, as they lost all three contests.
But what can never be taken away is how competitive the Giants were in a season where many thought they’d end up near the bottom of the league standings. All they can do now is look back on this surprising campaign and build upon it next year. Give credit where credit is due, the Giants were in it until the very end.
Oh, and Drake needs to work on his strike calls this offseason, because man were they bad.