ANAHEIM, Calif. - Then it was over, and there was nothing to say. Not that you could have heard yourself talk. As the Angels mauled themselves on the infield grass, the din of euphoria and ThunderStix and music filled every corner of Edison Field.

The Giants had no choice but to pack up their broken hearts and busted dreams and exit, stage left. Players grabbed their hats and gloves. Manager Dusty Baker hefted his suddenly famous son Darren, who was bawling his little eyes out.

The horror was complete. Less than 24 hours after being eight outs away from winning the World Series, the Giants had lost it. One night after champagne was wheeled into their clubhouse, those same bottles were being opened and emptied by the Angels.

In a World Series which saw momentum wear a path in the grass moving back and forth between dugouts, where no prediction was safe, the utterly unexpected happened Sunday night.

The Giants went down without a fight, losing Game 7 of the World Series to the Anaheim Angels, 4-1.

"We only threatened a couple innings there," Baker said. "There wasn't a lot of hitting going on in this game, which is contrary to other games. I never dreamed that (four runs) would be enough runs to win."

You could have imagined the Giants' season ending any number of ways. In triumph, for one. Or being hauled down from behind by another relentless Angels rally. You could imagine Robb Nen blowing a save; it is an open secret that his arm is beyond tired.

In fact, there were plenty of tired players in both dugouts. This World Series was an ordeal. So you could imagine Game 7 turning on an unfortunate mistake made by some player whose legs were weary or whose arm was toast.

If you tried real hard, you could even imagine San Francisco starting pitcher Livan Hernandez throwing a masterpiece at the Angels, just shutting them down the way he shut down the Braves in a win-or-go-home game earlier this postseason.

But no. Instead, Hernandez offered up a pitiful effort. He lasted just 53 pitches, less than half of which were strikes. The Giants scored the first run of the game, in the top of the second. But the Angels tied it up in the bottom of the second. Hernandez didn't last the third, when Anaheim scored three times to take a 4-1 lead.

You could easily have imagined all of that, for starters because Hernandez, when he isn't occupied being numbingly mediocre, throws far more stinkers than masterpieces. And a 4-1 lead after three innings was no great surprise. It would undoubtedly set the stage for a series of alternating comebacks that have defined this World Series and the character of these teams.

Instead, the Giants went quietly. Either they couldn't get the key hit, or they couldn't hit at all. Worse, they appeared feeble against rookie starter John Lackey, who was pitching on three days' rest.

Right fielder Reggie Sanders, who drove in the Giants' run with a sacrifice fly, looked so lost that Baker pinch hit for him in the sixth inning. Baker's decision to start young Pedro Feliz at designated hitter was a disaster_Feliz went 0-for-3 with two strikeouts.

Even the mighty Barry Bonds seemed mortal. The Angels challenged him his first three times at bat, and all he managed was an infield single. He walked his final time up, to no productive end.

"You can't pick your time," Giants general manage Brian Sabean said. "The time picks you. Barry's going to get a ring. It's just not the ring he wants. He did unprecedented things. He got to the seventh game of the World Series."

Where nothing seemed to go right for the Giants. With every inning, the Edison Field crowd grew louder. With every failed Giants rally, the atmosphere grew more oppressive. With every fly ball that died on the warning track_San Francisco hit three_the more palpable the feeling that it just wasn't going to be the Giants' night.

"It's difficult to swallow," said second baseman Jeff Kent, who will be a free agent this offseason. "Almost unbelievable. I feel like a loser tonight. I don't feel like a winner."

This was the fear after the Giants had blown a 5-0 lead in Game 6. To a man, they insisted the heartbreak didn't carry over into Sunday's decisive Game 7, though managing general partner Peter Magowan did allow that, "I'd like to have that 5-0 lead back."

Maybe they did undergo an emotional cleansing between games. If so, it wasn't visible to the naked eye. Because Sunday they lost so very, very silently. Then they packed up and left the same way.

Magowan stopped by Bonds' locker while Bonds was packing his bag. Magowan approached Bonds tentatively, almost fearfully. Finally he put a hand on Bonds' broad back. Bonds stood up, and the two embraced in an awkward hug, looked each other in the eye, and moved in different directions.

Their moment together ended quietly, the way everything ended for the Giants on Sunday night.