The Giants have been down this road before. The final day of the regular season will determine whether they make the playoffs.
Again.
It’s the 13th time in franchise history the Giants have entered the season’s final day with their playoff hopes still up in the air.
Half the time the Giants rejoiced for making the postseason, the other half they were bummed for getting eliminated.
Let’s go back through the years and experience the highs and lows of the Giants’ final days dating back to New York, with a big assist from the fine folks at Stats, LLC, who provided wonderful research.
You’ll discover the Dodgers often find themselves part of the story.
1908: The Giants and Cubs played a makeup game to break a tie and determine the pennant. Why? Because the Giants messed up a play at the Polo Grounds two weeks earlier when Al Bridwell got an apparent game-ending hit, and Fred Merkle, the runner on first base, never reached second and instead ran to the clubhouse as fans swarmed the field. The Cubs touched second, and the umpire ruled a force. The game ended in a tie and needed to be replayed if the teams were deadlocked at season’s end. They were, and the Cubs won the makeup game 4-2 to advance to the World Series. The incident became known as “Merkle’s Boner.”
1934: The Giants began the final day one game out of first place but lost the finale to the Dodgers 8-5 while first-place St. Louis beat Cincinnati 9-0. The Giants blew this one after owning a seven-game lead on Sept. 6, losing 13 of their final 21 games.
1951: This is the biggie. “The Shot Heard Round the World,” the Bobby Thomson home run that capped an epic Giants comeback from 13½ games behind in August. With the Giants and Dodgers deadlocked through the scheduled 154 games, a best-of-three tiebreaker (all considered regular-season games) determined the pennant. The teams split the first two, and the Dodgers held a 4-1 lead in the ninth before Thomson’s three-run homer off Ralph Branca capped the winning rally.
1959: The Giants were in their second year in San Francisco and entered the final day 1½ games behind both the Dodgers and Braves. The Giants still had a chance because they had a doubleheader, but were swept by the Cardinals 2-1 and 14-8. The Dodgers won the pennant after beating the Braves in a tiebreaking best-of-three playoff.
1962: Eleven years after Thomson’s mighty shot, history repeated. The rivals tied for first again and required another best-of-three playoff, which the Giants won with another ninth-inning comeback in the third game, a 6-4 Dodger-eliminating victory. Willie Mays, who was on deck for the Thomson homer, hit an infield single during the deciding rally in ’62.
1966: This was a longshot. The Giants were two games back with two games remaining, needing to win on the final Sunday, needing to win a makeup day the next day and needing the Dodgers to get swept in a doubleheader. Well, the Giants beat Pittsburgh 7-3 on the Sunday, but the Dodgers split a pair at Philadelphia to clinch, Sandy Koufax winning the nightcap. The Giants’ makeup game was scrapped.
1971: One game ahead of the Dodgers entering the finale, the Giants required a win in San Diego to claim their first division title. Juan Marichal beat the Padres 5-1, so it didn’t matter that the Dodgers beat Houston 2-1.
1993: The last true division race involved the Giants and Braves, each with 103 wins entering the final day. The Braves beat the Rockies 5-3, and a Giants win would have forced a one-game playoff the following day at Candlestick Park. But the Giants, in Barry Bonds’ debut season (his first MVP season in San Francisco), were gassed and got eliminated with a 12-1 loss at Dodger Stadium. Salomon Torres gave up three early runs, and the Dodgers spent the rest of the day beating up on the bullpen.
1998: The Giants could have clinched a wild card in game 162 but blew a 7-0 lead at Coors Field, Neifi Perez hitting a walkoff homer off Robb Nen. A tiebreaker was held at Wrigley Field, and the Giants went home after losing 5-3.
2004: A day after the Dodgers clinched the division with Steve Finley’s grand slam off Giants reliever Wayne Franklin, the Giants still had a crack at the wild card in the final day, a game behind Houston. The Giants smoked the Dodgers 10-0, but the Astros took the wild card by beating Colorado 5-2.
2010: The Giants were a game ahead of the Padres when they faced off in the finale. The Padres could have pulled into a tie, forcing a one-game playoff, but Jonathan Sanchez won the game on the mound and at the plate — he tripled and scored the first run in a 3-0 decision — and that was the genesis of the Giants’ three World Series titles in five years.
2016: The Giants, one of the best teams in the first half and one of the worst in the second half, needed a win on the final day just for the second wild card. St. Louis was in the running, too, and beat Pittsburgh 10-4. The Giants clinched with a 7-1 win over the Dodgers.
John Shea covers the Giants for The San Francisco Chronicle. Email: jshea@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @JohnSheaHey
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Giants’ playoff hopes: The 12 other times it’s come down to the season’s last day - San Francisco Chronicle
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