A towering moonshot, a stadium cable, and a high-stakes replay review collided in the ninth inning.
Never before had Jackson Chourio been in a situation quite like what went down in the ninth inning against the San Diego Padres.
Milwaukee Brewers manager Pat Murphy asked Trevor Megill to make a four-out save, and he ended up doing so, but not without a little controversy.
Megill faced cleanup hitter Ty France with one-on, one-out. France hit a towering fly ball to left field, only for it to bounce off the cable as the roof at American Family Field was closed for Game 1 of the National League Division Series.
France was convinced it was a home run, but the ball ended up in Chourio's glove so the only other call that could've been made was an out.
After much discussion, the call on the field was an out, much to the dismay of the FOX broadcast crew.
Once the rules were explained, everyone began to figure things out in real time, only for the Padres to challenge, ruling they believed the ball was going foul and should've been a dead-ball.
That was seemingly their only option at that point in time if it wasn't going to be ruled a homer, but sure enough, the call stood, and Megill recorded the final out two pitches later to secure a 3-2 Brewers victory.
105.3 mph off the bat, 49-degree launch angle
Baseball is a game full of analytics, and Statcast ruled France's moonshot would've only been a home run in one park, and it's not the one in Milwaukee.
France hit that ball 105.3 mph off the bat, and it had a 49 degree launch angle, which would've only been good for a home run at Daikin Park in Houston.
Obviously, those metrics don't factor into the review or what went down at the end of the game, but it puts things into perspective for the Padres fans who believe they were screwed out of a potential go-ahead homer in the top of the ninth.
What do the ground rules say?
According to Brewers' Adam McCalvy, the official rule book says that if a ball strikes the roof, roof truss, or roof cable in fair territory, the runner is ruled out if it's caught.
Anything over foul territory makes it a dead ball, which is what the broadcasters explained in one of the wildest postseason situations in recent memory.
In no world did the Brewers or Padres expect this to be the way things went down in Game 1, but if anything, it just means everyone should buckle up for the rest of this best-of-five series.
