Giants give up a lead late in Coors Field, lose 5-2

I don’t know if this qualifies as a broadcaster’s jinx or if it’s a rare broadcaster’s blessing. Before Gorkys Hernández stepped into the batter’s box to begin the game, Kruk and Kuip were talking about the lead-off homer he hit in the Giants’ 6-1 loss against Kyle Freeland and the Rockies back in June. They talked about how lead-off homers are unlucky, and Kuiper told Hernández if he could, to hit a triple off the top of the wall. Gorkys instead gorked the first pitch over the right field wall for another lead-off homer off Freeland.

With the way this game turned out, it looks like it was bad luck even though that’s not how it’s supposed to work. The bad luck thing is supposed to inform the later events, not be informed by the later events.

The Giants kept the lead granted by Hernández’s homer for most of the game. They even added a run because Brandon Belt somehow scored from first on a ground ball that got past the shortstop.

Everything was coming up Giants until the Rockies BABIPed them to death with dinks and doinks and sacrifice flies in the seventh and eighth.

Austin Slater didn’t have a hit today, but he probably saved more runs with his glove than he could have produced with his bat. In the second, Slater took away a double from Noel Cuevas with a diving catch. My favorite part about that play was how Austin Slater didn’t roll over his wrist and break or sprain it when he landed. For a moment, it looked like he was going to land right on his glove-hand.

The Giants don’t need another promising left fielder going down with an injury right when he starts hitting well. My heart doesn’t need another promising left fielder going down with an injury right when he starts raking.

But he didn’t get hurt. He turned his wrist around at the last moment. It’s as if he does this sort of thing all the time.

Later, he made a sliding catch on a play that didn’t look quite as pretty, but it came in a much bigger spot. With two outs and the bases loaded in the third, Chris Ianetta hit a sinking liner to left and Slater came in and sort of threw his body at it and caught it.

The play allowed Madison Bumgarner to escape a bases-loaded situation for the second time in the first three innings. Had any other pitcher in the Giants’ rotation ended with Bumgarner’s line of six innings, three runs on seven hits and three walks with five strikeouts, especially in Coors Field, I’d be singing his praises. Since it’s Bumgarner, it feels a little disappointing. His command wasn’t as fine; he walked two batters in the first inning. Still, the Rockies weren’t really hitting the ball hard against him. The only extra base hit they had was Nolan Arenado’s double.

He pitched well enough to extend his scoreless-inning streak to 22 before it snapped in the seventh. How Bumgarner’s scoreless streak ended was really a testament to how well he pitched prior to that because all the Rockies had to do to score in that inning was hit a 47 MPH bloop and a slow roller to the left side. In the previous two games, Bumgarner had pitched so well that teams couldn’t even BABIP their way into a run.

So Bumgarner left with another bases loaded situation, but this time there was nobody out, and Arenado was coming up. Reyes Moronta entered with a virtually impossible situation. He wound up walking Arenado but considering Arenado didn’t hit one into Todd Helton’s Burger Bar or whatever’s out there, I’d say he did fine. Had he struck out Arenado in that spot, I would have called for a bronze statue to be made into his likeness.

After Moronta induced a double play, the Giants gave up the winning run on a throwing error from Brandon Crawford. I’m surprised that (A) Crawford made such a poor throw on a routine play and (B) Belt didn’t catch it.

Fortunately, Ty Blach came in to pitch the eighth and promptly gave up two more runs, so we don’t have to dwell on Crawford’s error. He’s allowed to screw up a throw every once in a while. I just wish he wouldn’t do it on a ball hit right at him with the go-ahead run at third.

This was a pretty dumb game, but it was so predictably Coors Field that I’m not sure I’m actually angry.

Buster Posey hit two doubles today, and he should be the starting catcher in the All-Star Game, dang it.

Brandon Crawford should also be the starting shortstop in the All-Star Game regardless of his error tonight.

The Giants and Rockies wore red, white, and blue uniforms to honor Independence Day and to sell jerseys and hats. The Rockies’ uniforms look fine if a bit garish. The whole uniform at least agrees with each other. “We’re doing red, white, and blue. Purple, get outta here. Go on, git!” The Rockies uniforms like an improv group in that every piece is Yes, and-ing a terrible idea.

With the Giants’ uniforms, however, not every article of clothing is on board. The jersey and hat are both red, white, and blue, but the pant legs still have orange piping down the side, so it all looks mismatched. I think I know the reason why they opted to not make special pants.

You can’t sell pants.

You can sell hats and jerseys to the public. You can charity auction the game-used items like the special batting gloves and chest protectors like Chris Ianetta was wearing. But you can’t do that with pants. Nobody is going to buy pants off the MLB store, and putting up pants for a charity auction just feels stupid and wrong. Especially pants that a stranger wore.

I don’t know which is more distressing. Mismatched pants or the thought of used pants being sold for charity. The mismatched pants are so tacky, but also strangers buying someone’s used pants.