Eliminated.

It’s official.

The San Francisco Giants have been officially eliminated from the 2024 postseason after Anthony Santander’s walk-off homer secured Baltimore’s 5-3 win on Thursday afternoon.

Math has now made what we’ve all felt in our heart of hearts for sometime now a fact. For a lot of the right-brain intuitive emotive types who FEEEL this team—this already happened at any number of pit stops and pitfalls while traveling on this season’s long road. Hope died with the Giants’ four-game losing streak against Miami and Arizona; or the Mariners’ 6-consecutive singles off Tyler Rogers; or dropping the first two games after the All-Star Break in Colorado; or the fact that they finished before the break with a sub-.500 record, or when Willie Mays passed, or when Jung Hoo Lee dislocated his shoulder.

Isn’t it odd how long probability and statistics can hang on to hope? Calculations can be cold but also a comfort—which often end up being colder in the end. The heart knows just as Ryan Walker knew it off the bat. The moment contact was made, he spun back toward the dugout in disgust. As the 8th pitch of the AB, his 1-2 slider lacked the finer details of a breaking ball. It stayed up, loitering out over the center of the plate. Seeing its shape, its path, I’m sure Walker felt it deserved to be punished. Some smarty-pants out there might posit the same thing, that from first pitch on Opening Day, they were spouting off about how the Giants didn’t have it. Maybe so — though I wouldn’t believe for a second that position didn’t waver during comebacks in Pittsburgh and New York, after Blake Snell’s no-hitter, during the stretch of series wins against Colorado, Cincinnati, Washington and Detroit.

The heart knows, and the brain deceives. A quick glance estimates the flight path of Santander’s ball: Its gathering height, how it meanders out across the diamond towards the bleachers in right field. It tricks us into thinking maybe, maybe it will get knocked down, dragged by a current of air, an early autumnal chill. A wink of a doubt. Hope wiggles in. I’m sure Walker couldn’t help but look back to watch, to confirm, as Mike Yastrzemski drifted back. His face turned to the sun like Ptolemy tracking celestial bodies across the heavens, calculating while filled with wonder, calculating while pretty far off the mark.

Yaz stretched his arm to the wall, he had time to gather himself, plan his leap up for the ball as it plummeted down…

What had the emotional fist of a 500 feet cannonball barely eked over the fence, not even making it to the seats. Again, our perspective adjusts. Of course, it was still a homer. Of course the Giants couldn’t finish the sweep—it was the ninth time this season in which they won the first two or three games of series yet couldn’t break out the broom. Must we re-learn something that we already knew? Mourn something we’ve already grieved?

Sense prevails over a long season, but it is stretched thin. Holes wear through. Blind spots of wish and maybe appear in the fabric. We’ve become convinced of the poor situational hitting, the stranded runners, the all-or-nothing offense, but still we’re devastated when Donvan Walton’s bunt attempt to advance the potential tie-breaking run to third fails in the 9th. Or confused on how, why, Heliot Ramos didn’t advance to third on Casey Schmitt’s game-tying single when the ball jostled free in the collision between Cedric Mullins and Austin Slater in deep right-center. But even in that murk of reinforced disappointment and distrust a small part of us cartwheels because they tied it…they still tied it! And we remain open to whatever strange and rare and improbable possibility that might, could go down next inning.

The sentence is punctuated. The period was not emphatic, but after a ridiculous run-on of fragments, it was finally set by a fly ball that just kept drifting, that kicked off a fan’s glove and rolled back onto the field of play.

The Giants have been eliminated. The Giants play again tomorrow.