Giants Overcome The Uncomfortable Reality

LOS ANGELES - Nearly the end now, the last place on earth, they would end, San Francisco Giants went around to the inevitable.

"We're still breathing," manager Bruce Bochy said, "but ..."

Fascinating as the World Series champion misfits and rejects, strap-stretcher and nature lovers, cartoon characters and incorrigible, the Giants are common, as the National League runners-up in the West.

Only one other team is missing a piece or two, whiffing the great moments, lose the baseball season.

"We have not fought the same way we did last year," pitcher Tim Lincecum (record) said.

They will lose a handful of games, they are not as division champions, however. Barring a miracle, the kind that even they can not think of any other, they will have a plan, the champions of a season and return next October. They will not even play for them again.

Were attacked and invested and exposed. Some of them had bad luck. Some of them had a false belief. They could not protect the second year, Catcher Buster Posey (notes) about the game more than you could believe in them during the assembly as a weak offensive.

The spirit of 2010, when strikes has fallen in the name of destiny and pitching requires only one or two tracks - three drinks - were lost exhausting and demoralizing expectations injuries per year and a weekly reality show.

"I thought we could cope," outfielder Cody Ross (notes) said.

Instead, the Giants woke in the morning in their Pasadena Hotel Wednesday 4 ½ games behind the Atlanta Braves for the map of the National League wild, and 5 ½ games behind new darlings of the league - Diamondbacks Arizona - in the West. A series of eight wins against Clayton Kershaw was dead (notes) Tuesday night, their fifth loss of the Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander, the first day of the opening on the last push them close to elimination.

In the most important at Dodger Stadium, the Giants Kershaw worked hard enough to chase the game with 115 pitches in the eighth inning. Bochy had his game that he had prepared for two hours. With two on base, hit a pinch Pablo Sandoval (notes) against right-handed reliever Kenley Jansen (notes). Sandoval was batting in September 0364, but a shoulder injury left almost useless switch hitter against lefties. Kershaw sat at, waiting for a right turn and a sense of the stick. Against Jansen, knocked in three places. Carlos Beltran (notes), plus at bats in September, 0400, followed. In addition, striped, without lifting the bat shoulder.

A baseball stadium quiet and monotonous to cast most of the summer, Dodger Stadium nearly exploded with joy. Lincecum to lose again to Kershaw, Kershaw and then return to Cy Young.

And the Giants to mourn the shot that did not come, riders do not have, and what has made their season.

Finally, some teams were able runners in scoring position to set, rather than a baseball team beat the worst when they arrived 0.220.

In the late evening Tuesday, emerged from the streak of nothing other than September 1 tease. The Braves and St. Louis Cardinals have won in front of them. The Diamondbacks have lost but it was the Giants, and another day was gone.

"It's one of those years, I think all of us," said Chris Stewart (notes), one of three hunters who have filled in for the injured Posey. "The whole team, we can not catch a break. "

Tim Flannery, the third-base coach and philosopher, mystic, boat stuck on the floor with a Fungo bat, driving the answers just out of reach. As a team, beat the Giants even better than a year ago when they led the league in ERA, but had even lost the ability to maintain that minimum running or defensive tenacity. All that stuff that is indefinable winners, makes champions, made them rock stars who had also dissolved.

"It takes a lot to go right," said Flannery. "We need an energy -. Renewable energy a steady stream of the river positive is that Javy Lopez is called. "

For all numbers, baseball is still played from the inside. For all alignment points, the game can become a player and a game of kill the board. The Giants know that most of all, having learned most of last season with it.

"There is this deep conviction that it is your time," said Flannery. "It must be because it's a hard battle."

Do not give it yet. As Bochy said they have yet to breathe. But I'm realistic. This is another time. The game is almost convinced them of this. They do not play more often. They were booed at home. They were not so attractive, they will learn when they are winning.

"This year," Lincecum said, "It 'hard not to think about what people think and what people say. It plays well, is to be expected. If you do not ..."

In 17 starts since late June his era is 1.90. The Giants have won eight of those games. It's just the way he took the path he will probably end.

Lincecum shrugged.

"I'm concerned about us getting back there," he said.

Posted in: MLB