SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants have been mathematically eliminated from the postseason with a 4-0 loss to the San Diego Padres on Tuesday night.
Though the official MLB standings website have the Giants at one loss away from elimination, the team’s only shot to get close to a Wild Card berth would be to win out their final four games and reach a tie with the Chicago Cubs in which case the Cubs hold the head-to-head tiebreaker and all other tiebreaker scenarios don’t fall in their favor, according to MLB. The official standings website doesn’t account for tiebreakers.
This is the fourth time the Giants have missed the playoffs since Farhan Zaidi took over as president of baseball operations — their 107-win division title in 2021 marks the only postseason berth. It’s a disappointing finish for a team that was 12 games over .500 in early August and that spiraled out of contention in the last two months having lost 14 of their last 17 road games. A 8-16 record in September didn’t help matters.
Now they have just pride to play for. They’ll play the Padres once more before a three-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers to close a rough season. They’ll need to win out to finish with a record above .500.
“We want to win every game,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “First game, last game, middle of the season, trying to get to a record, methodically go out there and try to win every single game and do everything pre-game to put ourselves in a position to do that. That’s the priority for us.”
It also marked the Giants’ 13th shutout of the season, the fifth most in MLB behind tanking teams such as Oakland, Detroit, the New York Mets and Kansas City.
There wasn’t a whole lot of levity throughout the Giants’ last stand.
Rookie Kyle Harrison was scratched from his seventh career start with an illness; he’s been battling an upper respiratory sickness since his last start in Los Angeles against the Dodgers and insisted to trainers and coaching staff that he was good to pitch through it.
Coaches assured him they had a plan in place to have John Brebbia open and Alex Wood pitch the bulk innings to give him the day off. Kapler said he could still pitch in any of the remaining four games.
The Giants were two outs away from the bad side of a complete game shutout. Padres starter Seth Lugo gave up just two hits heading into the ninth inning as he vied for his first career complete game — but manager Bob Melvin pulled him two outs into the ninth after Luis Matos drew a walk and Thairo Estrada reached on a ground ball. Closer Josh Hader struck out Wilmer Flores to end the game.
One of their three hits against Lugo came at a cost. J.D. Davis doubled off the wall and tried to stretch it to a three-bagger when right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. bobbled the ball, but Tatis’ relay to Kim was quick and Davis overshot third base and was tagged out.
Davis rolled over his shoulder awkwardly and was removed from the game with a left shoulder strain. He’s day-to-day.
Brebbia started as the opener in Harrison’s place and gave up a two-out solo home run to Juan Soto in the first inning. Wood ran into trouble in the third inning, first allowing a single to Brett Sullivan. Wood fell awkwardly trying to scoop up a check-swing ground ball by Xander Bogaerts that resulted in a hit to put runners on the corners with one out. Second baseman Estrada’s throwing error on Ha-Seong Kim’s grounder scored Sullivan to make it 2-0.
Soto hit his second home run of the game off Ryan Walker, a two-run shot to make it 4-0.
Brebbia, at least, gave the Giants something to laugh about when Kapler came out to take the ball in the second inning. The opener planned a hidden ball trick on Kapler to jokingly refuse to leave the game, getting in a play-tussle with his manager.
“It’s arbitrary to give up the baseball you’re currently holding,” Brebbia said. “I thought I could keep it a couple extra hitters.”
While observers might have had flashbacks to Kapler’s altercation with Zack Littel last year, Brebbia and Kapler assure it was all in good fun.
