Giants drop second game of doubleheader, lose 5-3

And after 10 hours of rain delays and baseball and rain delays and baseball, Gregor Blanco jogged into third base in the ninth inning, getting tagged out on an advance attempt that didn't mean anything. I wanted to be mad, but I just stared at the TV. Roberto Kelly wanted to tell Blanco to slide, but he just kind of pointed at the last second instead of coaching. The Giants wanted to keep the winning streak going, but winning streaks have to end. Occasionally, they'll end with a boner in the ninth.

That was the kind of game that would be decided by a Daniel Descalso home run, alright.

Can you be mad? You cannot be mad. A split at Coors is a fine result for a doubleheader, even if the Rockies aren't exactly the strongest team in the league. The Giants' entire rotation, aside from Madison Bumgarner, is made out of pitchers who should fake kidney stones when they're supposed to pitch in Denver. Fly balls are punished. Breaking balls are just a little less breaky. That screws up what 11 of the 12 pitchers are trying to do. Eleven of 13, if you include Hunter Strickland.

The Giants started Chris Heston and Yusmeiro Petit in the doubleheader, who might be the worst equipped for Coors out of anyone on the staff. Heston has the sinker, sure, but he also relies heavily on that curve. He also relies heavily on oxygen, which is limited by the Rockies in just another attempt to gain an advantage, smh. Petit relies on his ... everything. Coors Field isn't kind to everything.

As is, I'll take the split, but I'm not happy about having to watch ti. Goodness, was that a lot of baseball. I mean, I get it, "Let's play two", and "I stare out the window and wait for spring" and "People will come, Ray" and "It's Travis Ishikawa!", but that was just so much baseball. Maybe it was the rain delays with the baseball filler between the baseball that broke me.

And then Daniel Descalso hit a home run to win the game. That's okay. Here's what I think about every danged time I think about Daniel Descalso.

That link goes to a story with a sentence that reads ...

We didn't know quite how terrible the Rockies were going to be*, and Zito-based optimism was abound.

That asterisk goes nowhere, a footnote that was swallowed by the imagination. We can either believe that means something good for the Giants, that it was an unclosed HTML tag for the universe, and now the Rockies are just going to be awful forever, or that it can mean something bad for the Giants, that the Rockies and Descalso are back for revenge.

Mostly, it means that the Rockies just won a game on a Daniel Descalso home run after 40 days and 40 nights. The Giants have won eight out of their last nine. Can you even be mad?

★★★

The thing about two-out hits and two-out RBI is that they aren't sustainable. There isn't a GM in the world who is scouring the bowels of Baseball-Reference.com, looking for the players with an ability to get that big two-out hit. They're things that happen, and you celebrate them. They don't have to mean anything. Giggle like you're splitting twos and winning every hand.

The Giants have scored 17 runs with two outs. That's absurd, delightful, nonsensical, beautiful, and unsustainable. But so was college. And I have no regrets there, other than all the regrets. Winning streaks are made out of dumb oddities like that. Put the two-out hits in your hit hump and store them for a day when the two-out hits aren't quite as plentiful.

Of note: Brandons Crawford and Belt tried desperately to add to that two-out RBI ledger, but their line drives found mitts. That's why teams can't keep winning forever. Baseball isn't designed to reward successful execution indefinitely.

★★★

Yusmeiro Petit is still probably one of the Giants' five-best starters. I don't know who should make room for him, so I'm not going to argue too vehemently on his behalf. I'm just confident that he's one of the five best, especially with Jake Peavy and Matt Cain out.

He pitched well tonight, Delscaso lunacy aside. The last thing the Giants needed was a starting pitcher to soil the mound in any of the first three games this series, and everyone did just fine. Vogelsong, Heston, and Petit didn't shut the Rockies out, but they didn't melt the bullpen into bullpen goo, either.

It could have been worse. That's the motto of this long, ridiculous day of baseball. It could have been worse.