Giants eliminated from postseason contention after blowing lead in 9th

SAN FRANCISCO -- Ten days ago, the Giants stood only a half-game behind the Mets for the third National League Wild Card spot. Now, they’re officially out of contention.

The Giants were mathematically eliminated following a disastrous 9-8 loss to the Cardinals on Tuesday night, marking the fourth straight year they’ve missed the playoffs.

“Pretty frustrating,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Everybody’s none too happy about it. This is a day that we were not looking forward to, and it’s here, so it’s disappointing.”

San Francisco led 8-3 after Heliot Ramos cranked his 20th home run of the season in the sixth, but St. Louis managed to pull within one behind a four-run seventh that featured homers from Iván Herrera and Nolan Arenado.

The Cardinals completed their comeback against closer Ryan Walker in the top of the ninth, when Victor Scott II singled and scored on Brendan Donovan’s game-tying double to right field. Alec Burleson followed with the decisive hit, a single to right field that scored pinch-runner José Fermín from second and served as the final dagger in the Giants’ season.

The Giants put the tying run in scoring position after Willy Adames reached on a one-out double in the bottom of the ninth, but Matt Chapman and Wilmer Flores struck out swinging to end the game.

The fateful night ultimately featured the type of extreme swings that have come to define the 2025 Giants.

The team appeared determined to surge back into relevancy after bringing in franchise icon and three-time World Series champion Buster Posey to serve as its new president of baseball operations last October.

Posey used his influence to help lock up Chapman to a six-year, $151 million extension last September and then made an even bigger splash in free agency by signing Adames to a seven-year, $182 million contract that was the most lucrative deal in franchise history at the time.

With Chapman and Adames anchoring the lineup and a trio of All-Star pitchers -- Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Justin Verlander -- leading the rotation, the Giants felt they had the pieces to compete with the talented Dodgers, Padres and D-backs in the NL West this year.

They emerged as one of the early surprises of the season after going 10-3 through their first 13 games, but they cooled off after they struggled to consistently score enough runs to support their superb pitching staff.

Recognizing the need for more offensive thump, Posey made another bold move by acquiring three-time All-Star Rafael Devers in a blockbuster trade with the Red Sox on June 15.

The Giants stood 10 games over .500 (41-31) and two games out of first place when they traded for Devers, but instead of taking off, they tanked. They went an MLB-worst 13-24 over the first 37 games of the Devers era, prompting Posey to shockingly go into sell mode at the July 31 Trade Deadline.

Posey hollowed out the best bullpen in the Majors by dealing setup man Tyler Rogers and closer Camilo Doval to the Mets and Yankees, respectively, and also jettisoned veteran outfielder Mike Yastrzemski to the Royals.

The Giants appeared to hit rock bottom when they sank seven games below .500 on Aug. 22, but they improbably clawed back into the Wild Card race by winning 14 of their next 18 games. They had a chance to overtake the imploding Mets and seize control of their playoff destiny entering play on Sept. 13, but they blew an early three-run lead against the rival Dodgers and went on to lose nine of their next 11 games to miss the playoffs for the eighth time in the last nine seasons.

“This year is probably the most frustrating,” Webb said. “No offense to the teams we’ve had before, but this is the most talented team I’ve been on. I think there were a lot of expectations. It sucks.

“We trade for a guy like Devers, and we were excited. It’s kind of hard to pinpoint when things went wrong. Unfortunately, it just seems like we’ve let it stay wrong for a long time. That’s not a very good recipe for success.”

The Giants have plenty of work ahead to retool for next year, but they won’t be starting from scratch. They still have a solid core of position players led by Devers, Adames and Chapman, all of whom are under team control through the end of the decade.

The heavier lifting will have to come on the pitching end, as Posey will need to find more depth behind Webb and Ray and rebuild a bullpen that was decimated by the Deadline deals and the injuries to Erik Miller (left elbow sprain) and Randy Rodríguez (Tommy John surgery).

“If there’s one thing about Buster Posey, I don’t think he’s OK with losing,” Webb said. “I don’t think he’s OK with even being at .500. He wants to win. I’m not going to play his job because it’s not my job. But I don’t think he’s OK with this. I don’t think there’s a lot of people OK with this in this clubhouse.”