Baseball, on a Wednesday afternoon, played between two teams no one cares about anymore. Some young players were out there with something to prove, most were going through the motions. The fans stood up and sat down. The seagulls pulled apart nachos. First pitch was thrown. The final out recorded. A game came and went, but out there, in the distance, passing quietly by like a sailboat on the other side of the bay.
The Giants ended their penultimate series of the 2026 season with a whimper. No built tension, no twists, or revelations here, just some light bookkeeping. Dotted-i’s and crossed-t’s. The 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Twins ensured what many anticipated. The Giants will end the 2026 with a losing record at Oracle Park. Their 16-32 record against American League teams is the worst in the Majors. With three games left, the four-game win streak — that season-long white whale — is now an impossibility, a franchise first.
Though officially “new” information at the completion of today’s game, it’s not news. This team has Benjamin Buttoned in a sense. A completely different, much younger face sits on top of their shoulders, but despite the fresh look, this is still the same being with the same flaws and weaknesses that have caused it problems all year.
Against Minnesota starter Connor Prielipp, and a trio of bullpen arms, the offense managed just five hits. They went cold all at once, with 16 consecutive San Francisco hitters retired in order from the 4th inning to the 9th. Often good for one surge offense a game, today’s iteration was a Shay Whitcomb 2-RBI single in the 4th. A bloop that blopped. The hit, more like a hail Mary pass, praying to avoid the onrushing fielders and reach of limbs and find a patch of grass…
It did. Two runs scored, the Giants took the lead, but the lead was brief. Minnesota tied it with a triple and a sac fly the next frame, and the bats had no response.
Cesar Perdomo pitched well over 5.1 innings, allowing 2 earned runs on 5 hits. Velocity on offerings averaged 89 MPH. Only seven pitches missed swings. He struck out two. His stuff wasn’t electric, nor necessarily graceful. Luke Keaschall broke up two ties but Perdomo kept Minnesota from running away it. He latched onto their legs and hung off their shoulders and held them close. Opposing hitters didn’t enjoy themselves at the plate — which, I suppose, is the goal of pitching as the end of the day.
But play, as it often has, got sloppy when it needed to keep tight. Perdomo left after 76 pitches because why make him throw more? Dylan Smith took over and put the go ahead runner on base to lead off the 7th. A ground ball to first that should’ve erased that mistake with a double play compounded the walk when Christian Koss airmailed the return throw, sending the baseball into the camera well and Kody Clemens into scoring position. Next pitch, Clemens scored on Walker Jenkins’s RBI single.
After recording the second out, Tony Vitello chose to bring in Sam Hentges for some reason. At this point, it should be expected that a Giants reliever can’t just come into a game and get an out. It has to be a whole rigamarole. It has to be made into a thing. A short walk made long. Hentges took the mound and threw four pitches that bore no measurable spatial relation to the strike zone.
Another walk, another runner gifted scoring position, and soon after, another run scored for the Twins.
Down to their final out, Drew Gilbert finally broke San Francisco’s baserunner drought with a pinch-hit single. A walk worked by Marcelo Mayer brought the winning run to the plate in Whitcomb. Comebacks happen. We’ve seen some wild reversals on sunny afternoons. Eldridge’s walk-off grand slam — a Wednesday. The 6-run 8th against the Cardinals — a Wednesday. Coincidence, though. Correlation, not causation. Joyful hiccups, definitely not the dominant theme.
That’d be too little, too late.
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