A painful but inevitable end for the Giants

By Art Spander

SAN FRANCISCO — It hurt. Don’t doubt that. To have the Dodgers, the team that infuriates Giants fans even more than their own team enthralls them, clinch the division at their home, was painful. And, sadly, inevitable.

Finally, emphatically, the Dodgers, with all that talent, but with all those questions, ended the chase and for the Giants the hope. It was a rout Tuesday night.

It was Clayton Kershaw in full domination. It was an 8-0 victory that had the message board at AT&T Park offering L.A. congratulations — imagine that, and telling us to “#respecttherivalry” — and the defending World Series champion Giants staring in dismay, if not disbelief.

“You have to remember that in the off-season,” Madison Bumgarner said of the opposition celebrating in what in effect is his house. “You don’t want to be part of that. It’s always tough.”

Even tougher when your own fans began departing as the score built, and in the stands behind first base there were only spectators in blue jackets or jerseys shouting, “Let’s go Dodgers.”

Infuriating. And to the Giants, unacceptable.

Bumgarner was the San Francisco starter this fateful night by the Bay. He was the World Series hero last fall and the one reliable pitcher this summer. But the game and the moment — and the Dodgers — got to him, while the Giants couldn’t get to Kershaw.

Thirteen strikeouts for Kershaw. One hit for the Giants, that by Kevin Frandsen, who spent most of the season with Sacramento, the Triple A farm team. And, after seven straight defeats at AT&T this year, a momentous Los Angeles victory.

Bumgarner, trying to win his 19^th game of 2015, more significantly trying to save the Giants, understood the task and the difficulty, maybe too well. “I don’t want to say it got the best of me,” said Bumgarner, a standup guy as well as a brilliant athlete, “but I was a little more emotional than I like to be. I didn’t have what I wanted to have.”

The Dodgers scored in the first, which it turned out was all they would need but not all they would get. Kike Hernandez homered in the third, Justin Ruggiano and A.J. Ellis homered back-to-back in the sixth. Mad Bum had thrown 112 pitches but would throw no more.

The game was over if there were innings left to play. The season was over, if there were five games left to play.

Yet, properly, there was little remorse from the Giants. “Four concussions and two obliques,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, reminding of a year too filled with injuries and trips to the disabled list. “And yet here we were on September 29^th finally getting knocked out.

“It’s always tough when it happens, but with everything, the new kids, the injuries, to go to the last week of the season you still have to be proud of these guys. Bumgarner had a tremendous year. He had good stuff today.”

Until he wore down. Until the weeks and months caught up with a man who a year ago pitched through October and surely must have felt weary, not that he ever would suggest as much. He wanted the ball, and the Giants, who had watched him outduel Kershaw earlier this season, wanted him to have it.

“There was a lot at stake,” said Bochy, stating the obvious. There also was an uphill climb. The Giants had three long losing streaks during the season, and after allowing leads to get away last week, twice against San Diego and once against Oakland, were eight games behind the Dodgers. They cut the margin to five, but sooner or later L.A. would stop losing. Sooner happened on Monday night.

“We had no margin for error,” said Bochy, repeating a theme of the past few days. Now they will have an autumn without the playoffs. Now there will be no more pennants or paraphernalia.

It’s hard to fault a team that didn’t have Hunter Pence except for a few games, that had Brandon Belt and Nori Aoki get concussions, that for a while lost Jake Peavy and for most of the time didn’t have Matt Cain or Tim Lincecum.

In spring training gleeful Giants fans wore T-shirts that read, “We like the odds,” a play on words noting the team had won titles in even years. But the odds were not on the Giants’ side. And the Dodgers were too strong.

“We were very competitive,” said Bumgarner. “We were there to the end.”

And now it’s the end.