Giants lose in horrific fashion to Rockies, 8-7

This is a series you'll remember for years. Decades. This entire series gets a page in the coffee-table book about being a Giants fan, and you were there. Not every weekend of baseball has something this memorable. You were there.

Man, remember that Rockies series from 2014?

That's something you'll say in 20 years. It's the password to the speakeasy of this wacky team, and you have it now. I can't remember a worse series in my time as a baseball fan, a series of three straight one-run games blown by the bullpen. We talk about the baseball gods a lot in jest, but this wasn't their work. They're cruel, but they're more clever than this. No, this was some Greek god shit, some serious wrath. Someone close to the Giants slept with the spouse of a Greek god, and everything was laid to waste. Looking in your direction, Pat Burrell.

The only part that we don't know is the ending. Think about what it took to get a Croix de Candlestick: you had to sit through an extra-inning game at Candlestick Park and freeze. So you can start an anecdote like this:

Remember when we stayed for 15 innings to get that Croix de Candlestick, and the Giants lost?

And it can go in all sorts of directions.

Remember when we stayed for 15 innings to get that Croix de Candlestick, and the Giants lost? Then you graduated college and got your dream job, and, well, I'm bad at this, but I just wanted to say that I'm proud of you, son.

That's possible.

Remember when we stayed for 15 innings to get that Croix de Candlestick, and the Giants lost? Then we went to take you to the emergency room for alcohol poisoning, but you were stung by a bee, and you threw up from alcohol the entire way to the emergency room while they were treating you for being allergic to bees? Then the ambulance drove through a Hallmark store and everything was on fire.

Also possible. There are all sorts of roads the Giants can take. Right now, it feels like alcohol poisonings and Hallmark fires are unavoidable. I still count July 4, 2010 as one of my lowest points as a Giants fan. Eli Whiteside pinch-ran for Buster Posey, the Giants lost to the Rockies in extra innings, and there was no way they were ever going to do anything good while Bruce Bochy was the manager. Yet I can laugh at that story now. It was just a plot point in an unbelievable-yet-charming rom-com.

We might chuckle about this series in two-and-a-half months. It doesn't have to be the end of anything, not with the foundation laid by the unbelievable start. I was tempted to write this recap in the voice of someone who watched the Giants sweep the Rockies and moved to 43-27 -- 700 words of "How about this awesome team?" It would have been old after the 50th word, but I'd be finished by now. I couldn't do it. This game, this series, is beyond satire.

The overarching message still applies. The Giants are still in great shape. Anyone want to trade rosters and records with the Rockies right now? Push the button, I dare you. You do not want to trade places with the Rockies. You do not want to trade places with the Dodgers, not just because you would have to pretend Tommy Lasorda isn't a repugnant sub-human pig man. You do not want to trade places with any fan in baseball. A two-game winning streak would put a lot of distance between you and this fetid series.

But it felt like a message series. It was an obnoxious, blunt message -- the kind that would make Steven Spielberg say, jeez, try a little subtlety next time -- but it was still a message series. This is not going to be easy. This is not always going to be fun. There will be doom. There will be gloom.

The only question is if there will be doom and gloom in September, too. If so, well, this will be a '93 kind of season. We'll have an entire winter to think about what hath baseball wrought. As is, we don't know what we're about to get. So we'll try to shake it off tomorrow, when the ...

Oh, screw you, off day.

★★★

Juan Gutierrez stunk for one of the few times this year, which is kind of a symbol for this game and series. By now, he should have stunk, several times over. He's a reliever. They have good days and bad days, and you hope the good days vastly outnumber the bad days. Except the Giants made it through most of this season without having too many bullpen implosions. Gutierrez, just a random NRI, has been mostly fantastic.

I would have traded a Gutierrez meltdown on May 24 against the Twins for a 1-2-3 inning today. Oh, boy, would I have. Come to me on May 24 with these three box scores, and I'll make that trade and throw in a bullpen implosion to be named later.

He is the 2014 Giants. He's been much better than expected for the season, but he was also oh no what are you doing what are you doing what are you doing against the Rockies just now.

★★★

The bullpen will take the brunt of the blame for this series, and it should. But I've never cursed a team scoring seven runs more than I did today. Two on in the first? Strikeout. Bases loaded, no outs in the second? No runs, even though Pablo Sandoval stung a ball. Bases loaded, no outs in the third? No runs. Two on in the fourth after the homers? No more runs. Two on in the sixth with one out? No more runs.

It shouldn't have mattered. Allowing eight runs to Colorado at home, when they haven't scored that many runs combined in San Francisco since 1998, is the bigger problem, and it isn't that close. Juan Nicasio was abominable, though. He had no idea what he was doing or where the ball was going. The Giants had runners everywhere, and they should have scored 15 runs.

Instead, they lost a game they should have won for the third straight day. This is your punishment for getting too cocky after the Cardinals series. Also, for Pat Burrell diddling Hera or something. He should not have done that.

★★★

Juan Gutierrez got a hold today.

That's so fucking rad.