San Francisco Giants: The Dream is Over — Now What?

The San Francisco Giants capped off their worst September in team history, limping to the finish line with a blowout to the Dodgers.

To make matters worse or better, depending on how you look at it, Hunter Pence probably won’t be with the San Francisco Giants anymore. The question is, where do they go from here?

The only certainty going forward is uncertainty.

Tim Lincecum is gone, Matt Cain is gone, and now Hunter Pence is gone. Three pillars of the San Francisco Giants dynasty, not to mention several others, have toppled in the last several years.

It’s sad in a way, because the reason we all love baseball is because of interesting players doing extraordinary things.

So when guys who did extraordinary things in orange and black aren’t around any more, it can be kind of scary. The future ahead is just as scary.

We all know that Bruce Bochy’s time as manager is coming to a close with there being a good chance that 2019 is his last season. And who knows what will happen with Madison Bumgarner this offseason.

The only safe bet right now is Buster Posey, who I think will — and should — spend his entire career as a Giant barring a huge drop in production.

It’s clear that nostalgia is no longer a franchise policy. It’s also clear that the San Francisco Giants just aren’t very good anymore and it’s time to reckon with that as well.

As John Lennon once wrote and sang, “The dream is over. What can I say?” Well, what can we say after a decade in which the Giants established themselves as a dynasty and then fell, and it comes to a close?

We can say that we’re grateful for what they’ve done in providing memories that we’ll be able to tell our kids about. But we also need to acknowledge that the dream is indeed over.

Those five years from 2010 to 2014 were just that: a dream. It seemed like we might’ve still been dreaming in 2016, but alas, it was just a mirage.

Now it’s time for us to wake up and get on with reality. The San Francisco Giants are currently an average at best baseball team that is going to make a number of changes this off-season.

And that’s okay. Empires rise and fall; people come and go; life moves on.

Finally, we can let go of the idea of the Giants as perennial playoff contenders. Sorry to keep quoting lyrics from solo work of the Beatles, but as George Harrison wrote and sang, “All things must pass.”

Yet, we can find solace in a verse from later in the song, “It’s not always going to be this gray.” Let’s hope not George, let’s hope not.