2024 ass loss

shrug

The thing about bad baseball teams is that they spend most of their time looking like bad baseball teams. But the thing about good baseball teams is that they also spend a not-insignificant amount of time looking like bad baseball teams.

We’re still trying to determine whether the San Francisco Giants are the former or the latter, and Tuesday’s 11-3 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers didn’t help us make that determination, it just was a reminder that all teams have bad losses. A lot of them.

2024 ass losses, if you ask me. Or 2023. Or 2022. Whatever your preferred flavor of recent mediocre Giants seasons is. We listen, but we don’t judge.

Just how 2024 coded was the loss, you ask? So 2024 coded that the best pitching performance came from Christian Koss, who needed just seven pitches (all strikes!) to pitch a scoreless ninth inning, becoming the Giants first position player to take the mound this year, and also their ERA leader. Their only other good pitching performance came from Spencer Bivens, who has been mediocre this year but turned on the magic when taking over a double-digit deficit.

Is that not enough? How about physical errors from their reigning Gold Glove winner, Patrick Bailey, and their offseason defensive upgrade, Willy Adames? How about a mental error by Heliot Ramos, throwing to the wrong base and sparking Milwaukee’s initial rally, which got the Brewers off and running? How about David Villar simply not standing on first base while fielding a throw following a ground ball?

Do you prefer tactical throwbacks? How about Bob Melvin seeing Jordan Hicks limp through five innings — having thrown 90 pitches and ceded 11 baserunners, but somehow limiting the damage — and deciding to let him kick off the sixth inning? Hicks was knocked out before recording an out in the inning, as the game went from bad to worse to over while Milwaukee scored a whopping eight times in the frame.

Or perhaps your retro desire is for the constant transactions of yore, which have been almost entirely absent this season. Might I interest you in the ERAs of AAA Sacramento relievers Tristan Beck (1.38) and Sean Hjelle (1.59), while showing you what happened with the seven batters that Lou Trivino faced:

Flyout
Single
Hit by pitch
Grand slam
Groundout
Walk
Home run

And maybe, just maybe, you’ve been reflecting on 2024’s humdrum campaign and found yourself pausing to consider all those inexplainable and inexplicable mistakes. Like Sam Huff rounding first base following a popup that no Brewer decided to catch, and then pointing out that first baseman Jake Bauers was in his way, rather than trying to actually get back to the bag, leading to the funny (not funny haha, per se, more spend 15 minutes trying to find your keys only to realize your car’s been stolen funny) scene wherein Huff was tagged out while standing idly about five feet from the bag. Just chilling.

A 2024 loss, if ever there was one. And hopefully the last one for a while.

But hey, at least Bryce Eldridge made his Minor League season debut and homered. We always have that to keep us afloat should the season devolve into a series of such Ls.