A Royal Comeback

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate)

The worst day of Bruce Bochy's managerial tenure began so light-heartedly as Giants players donned their Negro League throwback jerseys and watched Tim Lincecum, pants falling off his waist, imitate an old-time pitcher's 24-part windup, and Tyler Walker doing his best Babe Ruth home-run swing.

The laughs kept coming as Giants hitters played pinball for five innings and racked up a 10-3 lead. When people gaze back at Sundays' final score - Royals 11, Giants 10 - so many images of how it all went bad will spring forth, starting with Lincecum flying in the air like a rag doll after a home-plate collision with David DeJesus.

Was that the worst of it?

Or was it seeing the Royals get hit after hit after hit against a conga line of ineffective Giants relievers in a five-run sixth inning that tied the game 10-10? Or the sheer frustration of the day, exemplified by Alex Hinshaw's ejection in the seventh inning after allowing the winning run, followed by pitching coach Dave Righetti pulling the rookie into the dugout to prevent an escalation of hostilities?

Ordinarily, as soon as a team makes the final out, the players immediately walk back to the clubhouse. On Sunday, after Bengie Molina made the final out of a three-hour, 59-minute epic, many Giants remained along the dugout rail and watched the Royals celebrate.

"That's due to the fact that we had this game," reliever Jack Taschner said. "It was just disbelief that we let a game like this get out of hand. I told Aaron (Rowand) that a month ago, if you had said in a game Timmy is pitching we'd score 10 runs and lose, I'd have told you that you were full of crap."

Lose they did, blowing a seven-run lead for the first time since June 28, 2000, in Colorado and dropping a series they had no business losing before moving on to Cleveland, where they open a three-game series Tuesday.

"We're off tomorrow. It probably comes at a good time," Bochy said. "That was a tough loss, an ugly game all the way around, really on both sides."

Bochy certainly thought it was beautiful as his hitters took leads of 6-0 and 10-3. Fred Lewis reached base five times in the first six innings. Randy Winn had three hits in the first five. Rowand hit a cathartic two-run single after not driving in two runs in a game, much less an at-bat, since May 28. John Bowker hit a three-run double in the fifth to make it 10-3.

But the Giants already had shown signs of stress. After a dominating first and second inning, Lincecum allowed two runs in the third. DeJesus scored the second of those from second base on a wild pitch, as catcher Steve Holm could not find the ball at the backstop and Lincecum covered the plate.

As DeJesus slid hard, but cleanly, Lincecum tried to jump out of the way. His momentum, plus an extra shove from the runner, had the lithe pitcher flying in the air and landing on his back.

"I looked back and saw Timmy rolling in the dirt," Holm said. "He said he was fine. He was fired up just from the intensity of the game. He said it didn't bother him."

Indeed, Lincecum said he was not hurt and the collision had nothing to do with the three runs he allowed over laborious fourth and fifth innings that ran his pitch count to 109 and ended his day. He gave up five runs for the first time since Aug. 11 in Pittsburgh and has allowed nine over his last two starts.

"I didn't have a great rhythm in the bullpen," he said. "I took it into the game. It was just a lack of focus on my part. We had a chance to step on their throats when they were down, and I didn't help at all. After two innings, I didn't do anything to help us. I was laboring and just throwing the ball. I'm pretty disappointed in myself."

Still, Lincecum left with a 10-5 lead, which disappeared in an inning. Keiichi Yabu allowed three singles and a double to his four hitters in the sixth, Taschner a single and a walk to his first two. The Giants still led 10-8 when Vinnie Chulk got Jose Guillen to hit a liner to short for the second out. But Chulk, who has struggled all season in these situations, coughed up a two-run, game-tying double by Mike Aviles.

The Royals' winning run was almost anticlimactic, an RBI single in the seventh by Joey Gathright against Hinshaw after an Emmanuel Burriss error and a walk.

The bullpen is becoming more of an issue for the 32-44 Giants, but Sunday was not a time to discuss it.

As Taschner said, "This is a good game for everyone to keep things to themselves for a while. Everybody is frustrated for different reasons, and ultimately we lost."