SAN JOSE – There is a Bay Area team that is clawing to reach the playoffs, struggling through injuries, blowing a big opportunity and driving its fans crazy with agony and apprehension.

The team is not the Giants. The team is the San Jose Earthquakes, who like, totally, do not need this sort of season to happen in their quest to become Bay Area relevant.

The Quakes and Major League Soccer have a difficult mission around here. They must battle through the clutter of professional teams in other sports that play in much higher profile leagues. But a year ago, they seemed to be making progress in that mission. They opened up Avaya Stadium, which might just be the best athletic venue in Northern California when it comes to matching the sport to the best sightlines and overall viewing experience.

If you have never sat in Avaya’s end zone outside the immense outdoor bar, gazing into the horseshoe-shaped seating area (with a roof shielding fans from the sun!) as the Quakes attempt a corner kick that might be deflected directly into your cup of suds … well, sorry, you have missed one of the coolest fan experiences I know.

The problem is, after a decent start at the new digs in 2015 with a .500 record that almost put them in the playoffs, the Quakes have receded into a morass of extremely non-exhilarating and non-inspiring performance non-art. In the MLS Western Conference, San Jose stands in ninth place. Only the top six teams reach the postseason.

Beyond that, as a depressing exclamation point, the Quakes have scored the fewest goals in the entire league. Effectively, this has served to leak away any momentum the team had built with its new stadium in terms of breaking through the aforementioned clutter and exciting the local soccer audience. An opportunity booted.

The Quakes’ head coach, Dominic Kinnear, will not deny the cause and effect.

“We started off well, won our first two games,” Kinnear said Thursday. “And then we’ve just kind of been up, down, all around. It’s been really frustrating. Yes, we know that every time we have a home game, we have an opportunity to impress the locals. You want to give them playoff soccer because of how loyal they’ve been over the years … Things could change over the next couple of weeks. But right now, you’re scratching your head and are frustrated.”

Kinnear still stood up for his men in one sense.

“I do know the effort is 100 percent there,” Kinnear said. “The one positive stat is we have a pretty good goals against average. That shows the guys are committed to play.”

Yes, but there’s one principle that holds true in any sport when you’re trying to attract more eyeballs: A team can be unproductive on offense and still create enthusiasm if it wins. A team can lose yet still draw cheers for being exciting if it scores a lot of goals or points. But a team that is unproductive on offense and loses . . . that’s just boring and bad. Chris Wondowlowski can’t be expected to score two or three times a game. And he is virtually the team’s only major offensive threat.

“A couple of times,” Kinnear said, “we’ve had homestands where we’ve had three of four games at home, and we came out with just two points. And you could hear some grumblings. I’m not going to say I didn’t hear anything. I’m not going to lie to you. And the one who is probably the most frustrated of all is me.”

John Doyle was fired as the Quakes’ general manager on Aug. 29, a rare mid-season sacking that was presumably designed to shake up things and motivate the players. Since then, the team has played two games and tied both. So the shakeup does not seem to be shaking. That brings us to Saturday’s game at Avaya against Sporting K.C., which is sitting in the sixth place, the spot that the Quakes are trying to reach in their final six games. Kansas City is six points ahead of the Quakes but has played two fewer games. With three points awarded for each victory, one for a draw and none for a loss, you can see the stakes involved in these final weeks. It’s hard to imagine a scenario by which if the Earthquakes lose Saturday, they could still surmount K.C.

Doyle’s dismissal was thought to be overdue in some quarters. He was lauded for the way he helped re-launch the Earthquakes franchise as a 2007 expansion team and put together a 2012 roster that finished with the MLS’ best record. But since then, his acquisitions had either been underwhelming, non-productive or injury prone. The most damaging blow this season was the loss of veteran defender Clarence Goodson, who played in the first two games of the season (both victories) and was then forced to undergo surgery for a herniated disc in his back. You might not think losing a defender would affect the offense so much. But Goodson played a big role on corner kicks and of course, the best offensive attacks almost always build from the back.

All in all, it doesn’t give Quakes fans much on which to hang their fervor. I also wonder if the recent trend of more frequent visits to the Bay Area by major European teams, plus the now-overwhelming television presence of the world’s best soccer leagues through cable and satellite providers, has made it more problematic to get the sport’s keenest Bay Area fans more whipped up about the MLS and the Earthquakes.

“I don’t think it hurts fan enthusiasm,” Kinnear said when asked that question. “You just hope they remain realistic. Because what you see on television on Saturday morning, say, from Old Trafford, if you’re expecting to see the same thing out here, I think your expectations are a little bit high. I watch those games, too. I think exposure to the world game is what the American fan needs and what the American fan wants. But then to turn around and go to your local game, no matter where you go, and compare a $100 million player to a $150,000 player, it’s a bit unfair.”

Kinnear, in a circumspect way, was reminding me about the MLS salary scale. And beyond that, the Quakes have a smaller budget than many teams in the league. The ownership group, headed by Oakland A’s proprietors Lew Wolff and John Fisher, may soon need to consider some paycheck upgrades. Word is out that Fisher, a multi-billionaire, will soon take over more of the big-shot decision making for the Quakes as well as the A’s. Perhaps that will have an effect, especially if the MLS can rise in stature.

“It’s still a growing league,” Kinnear said. “We’re 20 years old. The money invested is growing. I still think it’s a good league. The thing that silences everybody is winning. And we haven’t silenced them or made them stand up and cheer. We have at moments. But not consistently enough.”

Saturday would be a good time for the Earthquakes to get those fans back on their feet. Otherwise, more momentum lost. You can only find so much enjoyment drinking beer at the end zone bar before it all goes flat.