Pitching failures doom Giants; is it still 2015?

It never seems to take Jake Peavy long to find trouble. The bullpen also appears similarly inclined, and the result was a 9-7 loss to Arizona in Monday's return to AT&T Park.

The Giants bats battled to overcome yet another shaky start from Peavy, only to see the bullpen surrender leads in the eighth and ninth innings before finally blowing the game outright in the 11th. Seven Giants hurlers coughed up 16 hits, walked two and hit one batter, augmenting the carnage with two wild pitches. It was ugly. Elephant Man ugly.

This pitching failure stuff was supposed to have been left behind in 2015. Uh, apparently not.

Ten pitches into the contest there were two Diamondbacks runners in scoring position. By pitch 13 the bases were loaded, and Peavy was lucky to get away with just one run allowed.

Does this man scare you? Us, too. (SFGate)

Infield single, double, hit batter (on an 0-2 pitch for God's sake!): that was how the game opened. A double play and line out  limited the damage, but it was still damage -- largely self-induced.

The Giants did get an early shot at Archie Bradley, Arizona's touted youngster just up from AAA Reno. A lead-off walk was erased when Denard Span was caught stealing, a loss keenly felt when Buster Posey singled then Hunter Pence and Brandon Belt walked. The Giants coaxed 35 pitches from Bradley, got a hit and three walks, but had nothing to show for it when Brandon Crawford fanned to end the San Francisco first.

Yep, it was that kind of night.

Okay, Peavy did do something right. He singled in the bottom of the second, took third on Angel Pagan's double and scored the equalizer on a Bradley wild pitch. The wild pitch is fast becoming the most potent weapon in the Giants' arsenal. Take note.

Span gave the Giants a 2-1 lead when he singled home Pagan, but then the Giants luck turned sour. Umpires missed a catchers interference (a play not subject to that would have sent Joe Panik to first base and moved Span to second. Instead Panik knocked into a fielder's choice and Posey grounded out, but the Giants had a lead. Bonus: Bradley didn't appear long for this one having thrown 59 pitches in just two innings of work.

Peavy seemed to find safe ground, retiring eight in a row before stepping on another land mine. Wellington Castillo's two-out shot into the sustainable garden tied the game in the top of the fourth. Meanwhile Bradley settled down with just a Pagan single marring the next two innings. And then...

Triples alley? Not for Panik, who backspun a shot into the arcade to start the SF fifth. Posey followed with a four-pitch walk, Belt singled with one out, and Bradley was gone after nearly two hours and 105 pitches.

Two hours. Jeez, the entire "Lord of the Rings" trilogy seemed shorter, and we're talking the extended versions.

Randall Delgado made it more interesting, walking Crawford to juice the bags. Kelby Tomlinson was caught looking but Peavy drew a six-pitch freebie to push home Posey. Pagan then seemingly blew it open with a two-run single.Uh, not on this night.

Staked to a four-run lead, Peavy folded. A single and triple to open the Arizona sixth chased home a run and chased Peavy after just 78 pitches. He was responsible for the runner at third, who scored on a grounder, closing his book with four earned runs.

Cory Gearrin pitched out of the mess an through the seventh, but Hunter Strickland gacked it away in the eighth. Paul Goldschmidt opened with an infield single, David Peralta singled to right and Yasmany Tomas ripped a shot over Span in center on which Goldschmidt inexplicably stopped at third. Castillo's sac fly made it 6-5 and put runners at the corners and Rickie Weeks did likewise to tie the score. Tomas took second on Span's throw home but was stranded when Chris Owings went down swinging.

Yep, total gas can.

Whatever. Peavy didn;t deserve the win anyway. Neither did Strickland,but he found himself in line when Span opened the home eighth with a triple off of Daniel Hudson. Hudson tried to wiggle off the hook, getting Panik on a short fly ball, but then.....

Yup, wild pitch. Someone really oughta pencil that into batting practice somewhere.

And then Santiago Casilla struck again. Two out, two strikes, and Jake Lamb golfed one over the Willie Mays Wall off the Giants poor excuse for a closer to extend the game to extras and make some seagulls very unhappy.

Regular readers know that as much as we love the Giants, there are two we'd just as soon see released, drawn and quartered, and then burned at the stake. You'd have to go some to top our distaste for Peavy, but Casilla has makes the accomplishment look effortless.The guy is a living, breathing Eli Roth movie.

That set up Chris Heston the sixth Giants pitcher of the night, to share the goat horns. Heston gave up a single to Owings to start the 11th. A sacrifice moved the runner 90 feet, After a foul out, a passed ball put Owings at third, and Jeaan Segura's infield single sealed the Giants' fate. Lamb struck again with a double to score Segura, and the rest was academic.

The Giants did make some noise in their half of  the inning with singles by Posey and Belt off Brad Ziegler, but Crawford grounded into a double play to end it.

Pagan was the offensive spark, going 3-for-4 with a double, two RBIs and a run scored. Span had two hits and a walk, driving in a run and scoring one. San Francisco wasted 13 hits in the loss.

The Giants, losers five times in their last six games, slip to .500 at 7-7 after a 6-2 start. They'll try to stop the slide on Tuesday, sending Matt Cain out to battle Arizona's Robbie Ray.

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