Austin Barnes, center, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat Wilmer Flores, left, and the San Francisco Giants on Aug. 2, 2022. A photo of the scoreboard from the game was used as a graphic for an MLB social media graphic meant to celebrate the Giants’ new signing.
Ezra Shaw/Getty ImagesThere was plenty of excitement for San Francisco Giants fans on Thursday night after the signing of Korean outfielder Jung-hoo Lee became official. Major League Baseball’s social media account joined in on the excitement, too, posting a graphic superimposing Lee onto Oracle Park.
But users on both X, formerly known as Twitter, and Instagram noticed something strange about the graphic: The moment they used for a background photo showed the Giants losing on the scoreboard … to their hated rivals, the Dodgers.
It should be a graphic celebrating all that’s good with the Giants. But it’s led to calls that MLB is either trolling the Giants or sucking up to the Dodgers.
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SFGATE investigated the details and was able to identify the exact game — Aug. 2, 2022 — and moment that the scoreboard shows. On that night, the Dodgers jumped out to a 6-0 lead on Giants starter Alex Wood in the first four innings, but San Francisco responded with a five-run bottom of the fourth to make it 6-5, the score displayed on the scoreboard.
Wood was back out pitching in the fifth, retiring the first two batters and getting two quick strikes against Gavin Lux to set up the moment that the scoreboard shows: an 0-2 count with two outs in the fifth and Wood on the mound.
Wood finished off the at-bat after the still image by getting a called third strike on Lux, but the Dodgers would go on to win this game 9-5. It was the second win of what would eventually be a four-game sweep for the Dodgers at Oracle Park and a reminder that the Dodgers have only bolstered their position as the best in the NL West in recent weeks and days. It’s why a graphic that should have celebrated a big Giants move having any Dodgers element to it is striking a particular nerve with Giants fans.
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And it’s hard not to blame anyone for feeling like MLB’s account is a little Dodger blue at the moment. As of 7:30 a.m. Pacific time on Friday, out of the first 15 posts on MLB’s Instagram account (three pinned posts plus their 12 most recent ones), nine revolve around the Dodgers and their newest free agent acquisition, Shohei Ohtani.
For the Giants? Even in the hangover hours of the day after a major acquisition was officially announced, only two of those 15 posts are about signing Lee.