NL DIVISION SERIES: GIANTS VS DODGERS

October 14, 2021

Gabe Morales

Ted Barrett

Dodger Stadium

Umpires

Postgame 5 Press Conference

Los Angeles Dodgers - 2, San Francisco Giants - 1

Q. Obviously the last call, which I would direct my question, just to explain the last call and why it went the way it did.

GABE MORALES: The plate umpire appealed the check swing to me, I thought he went, so I called it a swing.

Q. Did you see the replay?

GABE MORALES: I have seen it, yes.

Q. Okay. Do you still feel the same way?

GABE MORALES: Check swings are one of the hardest calls we have. I don't have the benefit of multiple camera angles when I'm watching it live. When it happened live I thought he went, so that's why I called it a swing.

Q. Is there a definition of a check swing?

TED BARRETT: We talk about it lot at our meetings because it is one of our most difficult calls and we try to get all on the same page as a staff that we're all trying to call the same thing. But by the rule book it just says, did he offer at the pitch. So there's some ambiguity there, but we do our best to try to be consistent, so players know what's a swing and what's not.

Q. And then, in the moment, the belief was that he offered at the pitch?

GABE MORALES: That's what I thought, yes.

Q. And I'm sorry, different feeling after the replay or?

TED BARRETT: Yeah, no, we, yeah, yeah, he doesn't want to say.

Q. And also how tough is it to make a call like that at the end of a series like this, the final out, it's O-2, best of five, down to the final inning of the final game?

GABE MORALES: In the playoffs every pitch is big, every situation was big and that situation is big, obviously. But I mean, it was a high-pressure game the whole game, the whole series really, so...

Q. I don't know if you want to react to this, but fans are saying, why do you end a series like that, like in the NBA, why do you blow that whistle in a final seconds of the NBA Championship game. Is that even a factor?

TED BARRETT: No, you know, we, I get that question from fans a lot and whether it's spring training and we're in Scottsdale and March 1st and/or we're in the 7th game of the World Series, we're always trying to get the calls right, try to call it the same way, and we try not to think about whether it's a playoff game, whether it's a regular-season game or a spring-training game, they're all important, so we're just trying to get our calls right.