The bus carrying the players with the worst record in the National League caught fire on Sunday. Yes, this really happened to the San Francisco Giants, on their way from the ballpark in Cincinnati to the airport in Kentucky. It has been that kind of season.

“It had never happened to me, so I didn’t really know what to think,” first baseman Brandon Belt said. “We’ve probably had one break down before; never really had one catch on fire and start smoking like that. It was almost funny to see it, because you can’t believe it’s actually happening.”

That is a fitting summary of the Giants in 2017: You can’t believe it’s actually happening. How could a team with this pedigree — three championships in this decade, plus a wild-card spot last October — find itself a ghastly 11-22 after Monday’s 4-3 loss to the Mets?

Nobody was hurt on the bus, at least; the players filed off and squeezed into a second bus for coaches and staff. But the Giants arrived in New York without Madison Bumgarner, who pitched them to victory over the Mets in that wild-card game. Bumgarner sprained his left shoulder in a dirt-bike accident on a day off in Denver last month.