Umpire Dan Bellino's wildly inconsistent strike zone costs SF Giants against Pirates

The SF Giants lost a brutal game against the Pittsburgh Pirates last night. They blew a four run lead in the 9th and lost in the 10th. A bad strike zone from Dan Bellino is not why they lost the game, but it certainly did not help.

Umpire Dan Bellino's wildly inconsistent strike zone costs SF Giants against Pirates

According to Umpire Auditor on X, home plate umpire Dan Bellino missed 18 calls in last night's game with 15 of them coming against the Giants. It certainly felt that way as Bellino's strike zone seemed to grow and shrink at random in last night's game.

The television announcers of the Giants, Dave Flemming and Javier Lopez, certainly felt that the strike zone was inconsistent. Several times throughout the game, they were audibly flabbergasted at how Bellino's strike zone was changing throughout the night and how many of the calls clearly went against the Giants.

The Giants did not lose the game solely due to Bellino's bad calls. However, there were several calls like one in the 9th inning when closer Camilo Doval threw a good pitch on the inside part of the strike zone against Triolo that should have been strike three but it was not called. Triolo went on to walk which loaded the bases and then a single and an error by Marco Luciano let the game truly get out of hand.

Who knows, maybe that one call changes everything.

There were also calls earlier in the game that hurt the Giants on offense. They had runners on base multiple times when a bad call would change the dynamics of an at-bat in favor of the pitcher. Perhaps if the Giants had more hitter's counts they could have done enough damage to where they had a nearly insurmountable lead in the 9th inning.

Alas, the Giants suffered a brutal loss at a bad time. They should have easily had their 5th consecutive victory as they played better baseball for most of the night and got more contributions from their young players. But a bad strike zone from Bellino and key mistakes at absolutely critical moments compounded to result in a brutal loss.

They have a chance to bounce back in Game 2 of the series tonight at 3:40 PM PST. Let's just hope the strike zone is a little more consistent tonight.