SAN FRANCISCO — Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt is healing well from a season-ending hand injury sustained when he seriously cut himself trying to separate frozen hamburgers.

Affeldt said Wednesday he expects to be done wearing a protective brace on his non-throwing right hand soon, perhaps in the coming days. He will fly from his home in Spokane, Wash., to the Bay Area on Thursday to be examined by a hand specialist and physical therapist. They will gauge his progress and determine the next step.

“Hopefully I’m done with it,” he said of the brace. “I’ll know tomorrow.”

Affeldt was at home on an off day Sept. 8 when the paring knife he was using pushed through a hamburger patty and deep into his hand. He came within a millimeter of an artery and underwent surgery about eight hours after the injury to repair nerve damage in his pinkie.

“My hand is great,” said Affeldt, who will begin his offseason throwing program in December. “The workouts are good and I started already. I figured I got September off.”

Affeldt has a $5 million contract option for 2012 and general manager Brian Sabean has said the pitcher will probably be back, even if it means declining the option and working out a new deal. Affeldt said he will let his agent handle all negotiations with the 2010 World Series champions.

“I expect him to be in uniform with us next year,” Sabean said when the season ended. “I don’t know exactly how that’s going to happen, but the option is the option. If we have to pick it up, we could end up picking it up. If we decide to re-negotiate in some form, that could happen, too.”

The lefty went 3-2 with a 2.63 ERA and three saves in 67 outings this season. He had given up only three earned runs over his last 22 1-3 innings before the injury and his 1.21 ERA since the All-Star break was seventh-lowest among NL relievers with a minimum of 20 innings.

There isn’t a rehab regimen for Affeldt’s injury and he should be at full strength for the start of spring training in February. Getting the surgery done immediately was important.

Injured catcher Buster Posey, meanwhile, is on schedule to be ready by spring training. As was the goal for this month, he is catching bullpens in Arizona as part of his rehab from a broken bone in his lower left leg and three torn ligaments in his ankle. He was hurt and lost for the season in a home-plate collision with Florida’s Scott Cousins on May 25.

“Buster is well,” athletic trainer Dave Groeschner said in a text message. “He has caught four pens so far.”

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San Francisco Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt is healing well from a season-ending hand injury sustained when he seriously cut himself trying to separate frozen hamburgers.

Affeldt said Wednesday he expects to be done wearing a protective brace on his non-throwing right hand soon, perhaps in the coming days. He will fly from his home in Spokane, Wash., to the Bay Area on Thursday to be examined by a hand specialist and physical therapist. They will gauge his progress and determine the next step.

“Hopefully I’m done with it,” he said of the brace. “I’ll know tomorrow.”

Affeldt was at home on an off day Sept. 8 when the paring knife he was using pushed through a hamburger patty and deep into his hand. He came within a millimeter of an artery and underwent surgery about eight hours after the injury to repair nerve damage in his pinkie.

“My hand is great,” said Affeldt, who will begin his offseason throwing program in December. “The workouts are good and I started already. I figured I got September off.”

Affeldt has a $5 million contract option for 2012 and general manager Brian Sabean has said the pitcher will probably be back, even if it means declining the option and working out a new deal. Affeldt said he will let his agent handle all negotiations with the 2010 World Series champions.

“I expect him to be in uniform with us next year,” Sabean said when the season ended. “I don’t know exactly how that’s going to happen, but the option is the option. If we have to pick it up, we could end up picking it up. If we decide to re-negotiate in some form, that could happen, too.”

The lefty went 3-2 with a 2.63 ERA and three saves in 67 outings this season. He had given up only three earned runs over his last 22 1-3 innings before the injury and his 1.21 ERA since the All-Star break was seventh-lowest among NL relievers with a minimum of 20 innings.

There isn’t a rehab regimen for Affeldt’s injury and he should be at full strength for the start of spring training in February. Getting the surgery done immediately was important.

Injured catcher Buster Posey, meanwhile, is on schedule to be ready by spring training. As was the goal for this month, he is catching bullpens in Arizona as part of his rehab from a broken bone in his lower left leg and three torn ligaments in his ankle. He was hurt and lost for the season in a home-plate collision with Florida’s Scott Cousins on May 25.

“Buster is well,” athletic trainer Dave Groeschner said in a text message. “He has caught four pens so far.”

This is the way it ends, with a lot of cheers, a few tears and, once again, if not an unused ticket in a ballpark sold out from first game to last, certainly a lot of unfulfilled hopes.

In this season of 2011, the year after the World Series, the Giants broke their all-time attendance record, luring 3,387,303 fans. Yet in their attempt to repeat as Series champions, they couldn’t even get to the playoffs, breaking a great many hearts.

“We had planned on working in October,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said ruefully.

But their final day of labor, and perhaps appropriately, of defeat, was Sept. 28, Wednesday, the final game of the regular schedule when the Colorado Rockies beat San Francisco 6-3 at AT&T Park, where the next baseball game is six months away.

“Not the way we wanted the season to end,” Bochy had sighed before the last game started. “We’re all disappointed in not going farther, especially with what happened last year.”

Still, what happened last year — the first World Series title — turned San Francisco into a baseball town and turned the ballpark on the edge of McCovey Cove into a carnival of good times, if not always of winning baseball.

Even Wednesday, the place was full, people dancing to the beat of the Rolling Stones and singing to the music of Journey.

“Don’t stop believin’ …” And they never stopped.

They gave Pat Burrell a noisy farewell as, wiping at his eyes, in the seventh inning he came out of probably his last game as a Giant.

They gave deposed owner Bill Neukom a standing ovation when first his acknowledgement appeared on the video board and then he was shown near the first base dugout. 

They gave one of last year’s heroes, Aubrey Huff, a noisy greeting when he came up as a pinch hitter in the seventh and singled.

Finally, around 3:40 p.m., the crowd of 41,273 rose and cheered as Justin Christian came out for what would be the Giants’ ultimate at-bat of the year, a rousing last hurrah, memories if not victory.

Moments later, the Giants, en masse, emerged from their dugout and walked to the pitching mound. And as the video screen saluted so many players, Ryan Vogelsong, Cody Ross, the injured Buster Posey, the courageous Pablo Sandoval, the players saluted the fans who were saluting them.

“Even though this season didn’t go [as] well as we had hoped,” said Bochy into a microphone, “I just want to thank you.”

Matt Cain gave a speech on behalf of the players.

Bochy had removed Carlos Beltran after two hitless at bats to keep Beltran at .300 for the year. Bochy had inserted Sandoval as a pinch hitter in the ninth, a reward for his competence (a .315 average) and conscientiousness.

“We wanted to win this game for Pat,” Bochy said, alluding to Burrell. But they couldn’t. It was that type of year, one of possibilities that went unrealized.

It was a perfect day for baseball, 72 degrees, virtually no wind. You’d love to see another game, but there won’t be another until April.

“The bottom line,” Bochy of the season, “is we didn’t play as well as we needed to.”

Art Spander has been covering Bay Area sports since 1965 and also writes on www.artspander.com and www.realclearsports.com. Email him at typoes@aol.com.

If mascots were Major League Baseball players, Lou Seal would be Cal Ripken Jr.

The San Francisco Giants mascot is a staple of all the team’s home games, and his durability is now beginning to get recognized by those across baseball.

What’s truly incredible about the lovable seal mascot, though, is that Joel Zimei, the man beneath the suit, hasn’t missed a home game in nearly 13 years, according to The Associated Press.

When the Giants wrap up their season on Wednesday, Zimei will have entertained the Giants faithful for 1,054 straight home games, which dates back to the final days of Candlestick Park.

Appearing in front of thousands of fans on nearly a nightly basis has become so common place for Zimei that he’s essentially become Lou Seal.

“It’s almost automatic, no matter how I’m feeling,” Zimei told The Associated Press. “It’s like hitting an involuntary switch and I just become Lou. After 13 years, sooner or later, it just blends.”

Zimei, who noted that the streak is the longest such, said that he’s battled through any injuries he’s had over the years, which includes a broken hand he suffered after punching a brick wall at the season finale in 2004 when he realized the Giants had not made the postseason.

Click here to see photos of Lou Seal in all his glory >>

This season, the Giants mascot Lou Seal went where no costumed fanatic has gone before: He attended his 1,051st straight home game, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Joel Zimei is the man behind the mask, and his achievement was widely lauded — the 49ers’ Sourdough Sam called Zimei the “Cal Ripken of mascots.” Ripken holds the MLB record for consecutive games played.