Last call: Giants out after check swing that really wasn’t

First-base umpire Gabe Morales addressed his controversial strike call that ended the Giants-Dodgers series, saying check swings are “one of the hardest calls we have.”

With two out in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Giants trailing 2-1 after midnight Thursday, Morales called a third strike on an apparent check swing by Giants infielder Wilmer Flores. The strikeout ended San Francisco’s 107-win season. The Giants had a runner on first.

After Max Scherzer’s pitch — a slider out of the strike zone — home-plate umpire Doug Eddings signaled to Morales for help on the call. Morales determined that Flores went far enough around for a strike, but video showed that he didn’t.

“Check swings are one of the hardest calls we have,” Morales told the San Francisco Chronicle. “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.

“The plate umpire appealed the check swing to me,” he added. “I thought he went, so I called it a swing.”

A check swing isn’t eligible for video review. Morales and crew chief Ted Barrett watched a replay after the game.

“We talk about it a 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,” Barrett said. “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.”