After a valiant effort with a shorthanded group, the San Francisco Giants have officially been eliminated from playoff contention, as the Dodgers defeated them 8-0 at AT&T Park on Tuesday on a one-hit gem from Clayton Kershaw.
"It's always tough. It's never a fun feeling," manager Bruce Bochy said following the loss. "I just talked to the guys briefly and told them how proud I was of them."
With their official elimination on Tuesday, the Giants have now missed the postseason in odd-numbered years and won the World Series in even-numbered years in every season since 2009.
Despite the obvious disappointment, Bochy was impressed with his club for remaining in the race for as long as they did, given the plethora of injuries that struck the team this year, particularly in the latter stages of the season.
"You're looking at like four concussions, three obliques, and yet here we are: It's September 29th and [we] finally got knocked out," Bochy said. "They fought. They fought hard. It's never a good time, but we had an uphill climb, and of course faced a great pitcher today. They never stopped, and I feel good about that."
Although the Giants held an outside chance of making up ground in the division down the stretch, Bochy pointed to a few close games that could have changed the complexion of the pennant race had the Giants emerged victorious.
"A couple of those games, it could have gone our way," he noted. "Even this last road, we lost some tough games in San Diego, one there in Oakland. It'd have been nice to have a little margin of error there as we went into this series."
Nonetheless, the Giants manager ended on positive thoughts about the season.
Receive your weekly recap of all the happenings around the world of sports.