Giants miss playoffs with one-run loss to Padres
SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants spent the final week of the regular season missing opportunities, blowing late leads and crushing their once-promising playoff hopes.
On the last day of the 60game schedule, the 2020 Giants wasted one last chance.
Needing a win over the Padres and a loss by the Milwaukee Brewers to secure the second National League wildcard berth, the Giants made scoreboard watching a useless endeavor by losing 5-4 to San Diego.
“We kind of controlled our own destiny this past week and we just needed to win another game or two the last couple of series to get in,” shortstop Brandon Crawford said. “We played great the last six or eight weeks. So yeah, to not take the opportunity to win these last couple of games and get into the playoffs, it hurts.”
The St. Louis Cardinals officially dealt the Brewers their 31st loss of the season while the Giants were batting in the bottom of the eighth inning, but Wilmer Flores’ solo home run in that frame wasn’t enough for manager Gabe Kapler’s team to pull even with San Diego.
The Giants entered the ninth inning with a chance to walkoff the Padres and waltz their way into the postseason, but San Diego closer Trevor Rosenthal retired Crawford, Joey Bart and Austin Slater in order to end the Giants’ season.
The Giants’ fourth loss in their final five games dropped the team to 29-31 as they wrapped up their fourth consecutive losing season with another disappointing all-around performance. After losing late leads against the Rockies on Thursday in a 5-4, 11-inning defeat and again on Friday in Game 2 of a doubleheader defeat against the Padres, the Giants fell behind early on Sunday and dug themselves a bigger hole in a three-run seventh inning for San Diego.
Kapler was visibly upset with his team’s performance in a 6-2 loss on Saturday during a postgame video conference, calling it “frustrating” the Giants were unable to take advantage of all the chances they had to gain separation from other clubs in the NL wild-card standings.
The frustration may have been mild compared to how Kapler and his team felt while watching Sunday’s game slip away.
To make matters more upsetting for the Giants, the Padres didn’t start center fielder Trent Grisham, who hit a three-run walk-off homer to beat San Francisco on Friday, and substituted for MVP candidates Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis, Jr. before either could make an impact.
After catcher Jason Castro took a foul tip off his mask in the bottom of the sixth, the Padres were left with no choice
but to bring designated hitter Austin Nola into the game behind the plate and send relief pitchers up to bat in Castro’s spot in the lineup.
The Giants twice brought the go-ahead run to the plate in the late innings on Sunday, but Flores and Brandon Belt failed to deliver a hit with a pair of runners on base in the
sixth inning while pinchhitter Donovan Solano struck out to end a threat in the seventh.
A two-run home run hit by Crawford in the bottom of the seventh could have had a huge impact on the outcome, but the Giants had given up three unearned runs in the top of the inning after third baseman Evan Longoria made a rare fielding error when he couldn’t corral a grounder hit by Padres outfielder Jurickson Profar.