MILWAUKEE -- San Diego Padres first baseman Ty France thought he hit a go-ahead ninth-inning home run Saturday night, but as the ball sailed high and deep toward left field, it hit a roof cable at American Family Field and fell into Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio’s glove for an out.
France could only watch in disappointment as the umpires ruled him out. According to the stadium’s ground rules, a fair ball that hits anything attached to the roof is in play.
The Brewers held on to win 3-2 and take a 1-0 lead in the National League Division Series.
“I stood there and watched it, and it was going [out],” France said. “It was staying fair. It hit a wire, took a right and the guy caught it.”
The only question for the umpires was if the ball struck the roof over fair or foul territory. If it struck the roof over foul territory, it would have been ruled a dead ball. The Padres challenged that part of the call, but it was confirmed fair on review.
“It’s a game-changing swing,” France said. “I haven’t really been able to fully process that, but yeah, it’s a game-changing swing.”
The Padres jumped to a 2-0 lead and chased Brewers ace Jacob Misiorowski after four innings. But Milwaukee chipped away, getting a two-run blast from Chourio in the third to tie the score before catcher William Contreras delivered a solo shot in the seventh for the go-ahead run.
After Brewers closer Trevor Megill got out of a jam by striking out Fernando Tatis Jr. in the eighth, he gave up a ninth-inning single to Padres left fielder Dustin Harris before France stepped to the plate with one out and his team trailing by a run.
France hit the 98 mph fastball from Megill with a 49-degree launch angle and an exit velocity of 105.3 mph. It’s unclear if it would have been a home run, but depending on whom you talk to, the ball was either curving foul or it was gone.
“It was going to be a foul ball for sure,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.
Padres manager Craig Stammen felt different.
“Looked like it was a possible home run,” he said. “Just didn’t go our way.”
Others in the Padres clubhouse, including France and Manny Machado, expressed a desire for technology to help in their cause.
“You would think with all the technology and data and everything we have now, we’d be able to make a clear call on that,” France said. “I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. We’ve got ball tracking, we’ve got exit velocity, we’ve got projected distances. We have all that stuff.”
Machado added: “I think we should reach out to the technology to have a better call there.”
Meanwhile, Chourio was credited with staying with the play to get the out. He said he wasn’t sure what happened high above him.
“I thought I had a chance on that ball kind of the whole time off the bat,” he said through the team interpreter. “Then the only thing I kind of realized, it changed direction a little bit, but I thought I had a beat on it for the majority of the time.”
The scenario actually came up before the game during the lineup exchange. Brewers third-base coach Matt Erickson credited umpire Nic Lentz for going over that specific ground rule, considering it isn’t discussed often.
“He gets through [explaining] the whole thing, and I looked at everybody and said, ‘I haven’t seen it in six years, but it’s definitely happening tonight,’” Erickson said. “And they all started laughing. It’s unbelievable.”
Stammen confirmed he knew the rule.
“We joked about it at the umpire meeting today about what would happen if the ball hit the roof,” he said. “And it was unlikely, but it happened. ... Unfortunately it was a bad break for us. It looked like it was a possible home run. It just didn’t go our way.”
Stammen also stumped for some outside help, joking, “Plug AI into it and figure out how far it would go.”
The loss was the first for the Padres this postseason after they swept the Chicago Cubs in the wild-card round. Game 2 is Sunday with right-hander Michael King facing Brewers rookie Logan Henderson.
“They had their best starter going today,” Stammen said. “We have our best starter going tomorrow.”
ESPN’s Bradford Doolittle contributed to this report.
