Done, Done In

Two things about this final game of the SF Giants' season.  First, if you're a team of destiny, you get hits like the Cubs got in the 9th inning.  Derek Law induced a double play ball, except there was an overshift and nobody was at home in the usual shortstop area.  And the hit that tied the game was a slow hit ground ball that just happened to be perfectly placed, also due to the defensive alignment.

Second is that if you have a bullpen that can't hold a 3 run lead in the 9th, you probably don't deserve to get very far in the playoffs.  The Giants were that team.

Had the Giants won this game, they would have felt good about this season even if they'd lost in Chicago.  They got two magnificent starting pitching performances in the first and fourth games by Johnny Queto and today by Matt Moore, they had their surprising hitting star in Conor Gillaspe, solid hitting by Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford, with signs that the bats of Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt were coming around.  They were resilient.

But for all that, the total bullpen meltdown in this game has once again given this season a bad taste.  There are few things in baseball more dispiriting than a bullpen loss in the 9th, and the Giants went through that way too many times.  It's going to make a difference in who is on the field in 2017, probably beyond the bullpen.  

Well, at least here come the Warriors.