Giants' bullpen ends season only way it knows how — with spectacular meltdown

Not even six months of record-setting futility by the San Francisco Giants' bullpen could prepare their fans for the spectacular meltdown that ended their season.

Holding a three-run lead and just three outs from forcing a decisive Game 5 of the National League Division Series that looked impossible 24 hours before, a quintet of Giants relievers imploded against the Chicago Cubs' lineup of All-Stars, turning four seasons of elimination-game magic into a most sorrowful end.

The Cubs rallied for four runs - equaling the 1986 New York Mets for the biggest ninth-inning playoff comeback - and advanced to the National League Championship Series with a 6-5 victory Tuesday night.

Cubs rally in ninth, eliminate Giants to advance to NLCS

And while Chicago will surely celebrate its late-game heroes - from Ben Zobrist's key RBI double to Javier Baez's decisive base hit up the middle - the goats in San Francisco will look all too familiar.

The Giants blew a major league-worst 32 saves this season, the most by a playoff team since saves became an official stat. They converted just 59% of their save opportunities and blew nine saves in August and September, giving away the National League West and delaying a wild card clinch until the season's final day. The bullpen was a virus that had beloved manager Bruce Bochy catching significant flak all season, first for his loyalty to deposed closer Santiago Casilla and later for an ill-fated mix-and-match approach that hampered any sense of continuity.

In fairness, the group was so flawed that Bochy had few options. Tuesday night, both their individual ineptitude and Bochy's questionable decisions were laid out for a nationwide audience:

• The first three relievers deployed - Derek Law, Javier Lopez and Sergio Romo - failed to record an out. 
• Lopez, a lefty specialist who loomed large on all three of the Giants' title-winning teams this decade - committed the cardinal sin of issuing a walk to Anthony Rizzo while his club held a 5-2 lead.
• Romo, who emerged as Bochy's closer - more or less - in the season's final days, gave up a ringing double to the lone man he faced, Ben Zobrist. This came a night after Romo yielded a two-run, ninth inning homer to Kris Bryant that forced the Giants to play 13 innings to claim a Game 3 victory. 
• Cubs manager Joe Maddon then outfoxed Bochy, throwing up pinch hitter Chris Coghlan and then replacing him with righty-hitting Willson Contreras when Bochy opted for his final lefty, Will Smith. Contreras tied the score with a two-run single. 

At that point, why delay the inevitable? It came when Baez smoked a fastball off Hunter Strickland up the middle for the go-ahead single.

Eleven consecutive elimination-game victories - gone.

Their streak of consecutive even-year titles - over.

And it's likely the last Giants will see of their late-inning protagonists. Romo, Casilla and Lopez - all three-time World Series champions with the Giants - will be free agents. Wholesale changes with the bullpen would have been inevitable anyway.

Now, a unit that dragged down a club all season will ensure a bittersweet taste lingers well into the winter.

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