Cohn: This one got away from Giants, but race isn't over

SAN FRANCISCO

It was a bad loss by the Giants in Wednesday night’s so-called must-win game against the Rockies. Bad loss. But it’s important to clearly define “bad loss,” if you don’t mind doing a little verbal analysis.

It was bad because the Giants are now 3½ behind Colorado in the wild-card standings and with a win they would have closed to 1½.

It was bad because the Giants played badly. Let’s linger on that a moment. Matt Cain, a good pitcher, threw like a guy with a tired arm. It’s like his arm was muttering to him, “I’ve served you well, but please don’t make me do this anymore.” Maybe Cain needs to miss a start.

It was bad because Aaron Rowand dropped a routine fly ball in center field. And it was bad because Andres Torres ran himself into a double play in one of the worst, one of the strangest plays in the history of bad plays. He led off the bottom of the fourth with a double — and good for you, Andres. After Freddy Sanchez struck out, Edgar Renteria hit a routine grounder to shortstop.

In a case like that, when the ball is hit in front of him, the runner at second stays put. It is a law of baseball. Torres already was in scoring position and there was no reason for him to move. But move he did. He started running toward third and at a certain point a key thought crossed the relevant synapse in his brain. It was a one-word thought. “Mistake!”

You could see Torres understand the gravity of his error. And then he made a worse error. He began running back toward second. No, Andres, a guy in your position keeps running toward third and you take your chances. But Torres, clearly unnerved, backtracked and that gave shortstop Troy Tulowitzki the chance to tag Torres and throw onto first for the double play. End of threat. End of inning.

Afterward, Torres, in a state of maximum chagrin, said, “I had a big lead. I tried to come back and it was too late. I took too much.”

The game was bad because, trailing 4-0 in the bottom of the sixth, the Giants got runners to second and third with nobody out and then Torres, Sanchez and Pablo Sandoval struck out. Bad. Very bad.

The game was bad because the Giants had the winning run at the plate in the bottom of the ninth with nobody out and couldn’t deliver. Nate Schierholtz, who ended the game by striking out, said, “I didn’t get it done. I swung at Ball4, a fastball away.”

Just bad.

The game was additionally bad because the Rockies should have been the uptight team. They had been careless with their wild-card lead and allowed the Giants back into the race. But the Giants made the grievous mistakes, played like the nervous team.

So the Giants lost a chunk of ground to the Rockies in this one game, with September fading fast. That is cause for worry if you worry about things like that.

But things aren’t desperate and now I’ll tell you why. Think of the rest of the season as the early edition of the playoffs — as one big playoff series. The Giants, in fact, have 16 games to go, so they are in a 16-game playoff series. Are you with me? I need to make a confession. Marty Lurie, Oakland A’s broadcaster, lectured me on this idea of the 16-game playoff during the third inning. I love to talk baseball with Marty.

The Giants already showed they can gain ground on the Rockies and there’s no reason they can’t do it again — even though the Rockies have a more favorable schedule from here on out, more home games than the Giants. If you get disheartened by one loss, even a crummy loss like this one, you are missing the big picture, the fact that baseball endlessly ebbs and flows and will continue to do that until the very end. Believe me, I missed this last week when I wrote the Giants off, but I’ve reformed.

It’s not over until the Giants are five games behind Colorado with four to go. If they are three back with four to go, they are in deep trouble but they are still alive. Right now they are very much alive. You might even call them full of life.

“We’re in a situation where we need to win ballgames,” Bruce Bochy said afterward. “It’s pretty simple.”

So hold onto this thought. This was a very bad loss but it wasn’t a deal-breaker loss. In case you’re wondering, the deal is still pending.

For more on the world of sports in general and the Bay Area in particular, go to the Cohn Zohn at blog.pressdemocrat.com/cohn. You can reach Staff Columnist Lowell Cohn at lowell.cohn@pressdemocrat.com.