No, Giants fans are not overreacting to The Check Swing vs. Dodgers in Game 5

So many dangerous emotions got here flooding again – Sweet Maldonado’s slide, Bobby Jones, 2002, Jose Cruz Jr. dropping the fly ball, Steve Finley – that for a quick second, it was nearly as if these even 12 months titles hadn’t occurred. I can’t think about the way it should have felt for followers who hadn’t lived via these years, or had solely began following the group throughout their unprecedented run. What’s this sense?

Oh, that’s ache. Terrible, unrelenting ache that can stick to you for the remainder of your life as a fan, irrespective of what number of championships the Giants find yourself profitable. It had been pushed down for some time, forgotten, nevertheless it was nonetheless there, lingering, ready.

Sure, the Giants had loads of probabilities to attain in Sport 5, and sure, Wilmer Flores was 0-for-17 in his profession towards Max Scherzer, and sure, he was behind within the depend. However so what? He may have been 0-for-100 towards Scherzer. It simply takes one mistake, one pitch leaking over the plate that Flores may drive into the hole, for the sport and the collection to show. Would he have struck out on the subsequent pitch? Possibly. However we’ll by no means know as a result of the bat was taken out of his arms by a really horrible name. Shedding is rarely enjoyable, however dropping figuring out your group left all of it on the sector is barely simpler to take.

Possibly in a couple of months, or years, that feeling of disappointment will subside. The Giants’ unimaginable season shouldn’t be marred by one blown name. There’s quite a bit to love about S.F. and its probabilities over the subsequent decade or so. The Giants reestablished themselves as a powerhouse franchise years sooner than anybody anticipated them to. They’ve a pipeline filled with younger, thrilling gamers able to contribute. They discovered an ace in Logan Webb who etched his identify subsequent to the greats in group historical past so far as postseason performances go.

They stood toe-to-toe with the Dodgers after holding them off all 12 months and got here inside a run of knocking them out. They’ve an attractive mixture of entrance workplace smarts and boatloads of cash to spend over the winter. They could look totally different subsequent April, however the basis of a real contender has been set.

All of that’s good, and it ought to make you are feeling nice in regards to the future. However within the current, man, it certain is difficult to consider that stuff whenever you really feel like the chance was taken from them. Irrespective of what number of occasions you’ll hear folks say that one name doesn’t matter and the Giants didn’t lose merely due to it, don’t purchase it. It’s the tangible cause, the nice “what if” that can proceed to gnaw.

I attempted evaluating it to the defining Giants heartbreak second of my life – Sport 6 – however the comparability simply doesn’t fairly match. The Giants misplaced that World Sequence; an umpire’s judgment name didn’t take it from them. This can be a totally different sort of ache, a brand new sort of disappointment. What if? What if Flores acquired to see yet another pitch?

A long time from now, Giants followers will have the ability to say to one another, “The Verify Swing,” and immediately know what the opposite is feeling. A complete new era of followers has their very own “sport 6.”

Nevertheless it’s not all dangerous. That shared ache is what binds us collectively as followers. It dissipated during the last decade, however earlier than that it was all we had. We loved the nice occasions as a result of we remembered the dangerous occasions; I imply, should you don’t have dangerous occasions to match to, how do you actually understand how good you might have it? And when the Giants win one other World Sequence, it would make it that a lot sweeter as a result of we keep in mind all the heartache. We’ll neglect this sport, we’ll neglect this collection, and we might even neglect the umpire’s identify.

However man, does it sting proper now.

That rattling verify swing.

Dave Tobener (@gggiants on Twitter) is a lifelong Giants fan whose household has had season tickets for over 30 years. He is been fortunate sufficient to by no means miss a World Sequence sport in The Metropolis in his lifetime, nonetheless is not fully over 2002, and lives and dies with the Giants yearly.