Met announcers rip Card debacle

The baseball world was incensed over the ending of Thursday’s Cardinals-Reds game.

But not half as much as the Mets and Giants will be if they miss out on a wild-card spot by one game.

“It was a complete and utter embarrassment for Major League Baseball,” Mets announcer Gary Cohen said during Friday’s Mets’ broadcast, a day after the Cardinals were awarded a walk-off win they didn’t deserve.

The Cardinals blanked the Pirates, 7-0, Friday behind Carlos Martinez, keeping them right in the thick of the wildcard race and adding further possible significance to Thursday’s fiasco.

After Yadier Molina smacked a double off the wall in left field, Matt Carpenter raced home to end the game.

However, instant replay showed that the ball bounced off a MOLottery.com sign and not the wall, meaning it should have been ruled a ground-rule double and Carpenter should have had to return to third with two outs.

But Reds manager Bryan Price said because of the crowd noise he never heard the phone ringing with advice to challenge the final play and by the time he realized what happened it was too late as the umpire crew had left the field.

As Cohen mentioned, there are hours spent reviewing meaningless plays in much lesser games in order to “get it right in big games in a pennant race.” The official MLB rule for a challenge play that ends a game states that it “must be invoked immediately upon the conclusion of the play, and both clubs shall remain in their dugouts until the replay official issues a decision.”

The umpires refused to come back out after Price, upon realizing his mistake, chased them down the tunnel.

If the umpires were technically correct in not allowing a late challenge, Mets color commentator Ron Darling was not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

“The spirit of the rule is to get (the call) right, and they didn’t,” Darling said.

Mets fans were already preparing for the worst on Friday.

“you know what would be SO #mets? if that dumb play in st. louis ends up keeping them out of the playoffs,” Andrew Vazzano tweeted.

“Wondering how bad that Reds/Cardinals game last night is gonna screw the mets over,” user k shea tweeted.