LOS ANGELES — Wilmer Flores is done talking about the check swing. Or at least he wants to be.
“My family kept talking about it,” Flores said Tuesday afternoon, before the Giants’ first game against the Dodgers since the abrupt and controversial ending to Game 5 of last year’s NLDS and with it, San Francisco’s magical 107-win season.
“Friends and family, they were talking to me about the play. It sucked for us, but it’s not the first game we’ve lost as players. You flush it and that’s it. You don’t want to hear about it. You don’t want to keep talking about it.”
You’ve seen the swing. You’ve seen the replays. You’ve probably drawn your own conclusions.
Mauricio Dubón, who grew up in a household of Giants fans hearing his dad cuss at the television broadcast of Dodgers games, had the same perspective as most San Francisco diehards — watching on television after being left off the playoff roster. Check swings aren’t subject to replay reviews, but Dubón and the millions of national TV viewers saw the swing over and over again.
“I was upset. I was yelling,” Dubón said. “Especially Wilmer. When he gets upsets at the umpires, I know he’s right. His eyes are so good that when he gets upset, OK, it’s a ball.”
There’s one undeniable aspect of first base umpire Gabe Morales’ call on Flores’ sheepish offering on that 1-2 pitch from Max Scherzer in the ninth inning just over 200 days ago: that ending did not do justice to the rivals’ sprint to — and then past — the finish line.
No division series had ever featured more combined wins than San Francisco’s 107, one better than the Dodgers’ 106.
The race down the stretch, followed by the emotional, hard-fought five-game playoff series that followed resulted in neither of those teams reaching the World Series. The Giants were eliminated with Flores’ check swing. The Dodgers’ tank was so empty that 88-win Atlanta prevailed the next round and eventually won it all.
The Giants, at least, can lay claim on an NL West title.
“I feel like we played one month of playoffs,” Flores said. “If we wanted to win the division, we had to win because the Dodgers kept winning. It was basically playoff games, must-wins everyday. Somehow we did it.”
After the first month of this season, the teams are back trading turns in the top spot of the NL West. Both have World Series aspirations. The Dodgers have extra inspiration after coming up a game short of the division last year.
“I know I take it personal that we’re not the defending champs in the National League West, and I know our guys do too,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts told reporters before Tuesday’s game.
Nobody more than Flores is thankful for a fresh start.
After Tuesday night’s game, the rivals will square off 18 more times this season. And, hey, maybe another five — or seven — times after Game 162, too.
“It was tough to swallow,” Flores said. “The good thing about this sport is you get new opportunities, and here we are.”
WADE NEARS RETURN: Flores wasn’t the only member of the Giants to spend time in the immediate aftermath stewing in how last season ended. But on Tuesday, he was the only player with a chance to avenge his game-deciding strikeout.
LaMonte Wade Jr., who hit a pitch from Scherzer over the right-field wall but just foul before striking out in the at-bat preceding Flores’, said this spring that “When I first got home, all I could think about for those first two weeks was that Scherzer at-bat. … I lost a lot of sleep over that.”
But on Tuesday, Wade (right knee inflammation/bone bruising) was in Sacramento — not Los Angeles — playing the sixth game of his rehab assignment. For the first time, he was joined by Evan Longoria and Tommy La Stella, who began their respective rehab assignments Tuesday night, too.
Wade hasn’t played a game with the Giants since tweaking his right knee during a spring training game.
But he could get his shot at revenge — against the Dodgers, at least, if not Scherzer, whom the Giants have already seen during their series with the Mets — possibly as soon as Wednesday in the finale of this brief two-game series in Los Angeles.
Wade is “physically ready to come off the IL,” manager Gabe Kapler said.
But, Kapler said, that is only the first step.
“The second step is comfort and confidence. We want when LaMonte comes to the big leagues for him to be fully confident on his knee, which is a major psychological factor, and ready to play in back-to-back games.”
Against Dodgers left-hander Julio Urias, the Giants rolled out a lineup heavy with right-handers. That included at third base newcomer Kevin Padlo, who in the past week has flown from Albuquerque to Seattle and driven from Seattle to Sacramento, before flying to Los Angeles Tuesday morning.
To make room on the roster, the Giants optioned Mike Ford, who like Padlo was also recently acquired from the Mariners after being designated for assignment.
The tough southpaw starter and the current state of the Giants’ roster — still missing eight players to various injuries or COVID-19 cases — meant Dubón was roaming center field.
His father cussing at the television could only prepare him so much for the bilingual taunts he expected to hear from fans in the bleachers.
“It’s fun to come in here and play. The hostility there is from the crowd,” Dubón said. “I get a lot of heckles in center field. There’s a lot — in Spanish and English.”
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism