SAN FRANCISCO _ Ty Blach is discovering just how thin the margins of error can be in the Majors.
After posting a 1.87 ERA in his first five home starts filling in for the injured Madison Bumgarner in the San Francisco Giants rotation, Blach took one on the chin against the Kansas City Royals at AT&T Park Tuesday, surrendering seven earned runs over 5 2/3 innings of work in an 8-1 loss.
Although he gave up 10 hits, the crooked numbers look a lot worse than Blach's stuff was in the 2014 World Series rematch at China Basin.
After Lorenzo Cain and Eric Hosmer led off the sixth with singles, Blach nearly escaped a six-run inning unscathed after he fanned Salvador Perez and induced a ground ball from Mike Moustakas.
But the inning-ending double play eluded Blach by mere inches as a sliding Brandon Crawford failed to scoop Moustakas' bouncer, allowing the runners to reach safely at all three bases.
Alcides Escobar, who entered the game batting .180, brought in two runs on the next pitch, ripping a hard grounder down the right field line. After he intentionally walked Alex Gordon to load the bases, and struck out pitcher Jason Vargas, Blach (4-4) wound up being on the hook for three more runs when reliever Cory Gearing allowed Whit Merrifield to clear the bases with a triple off a high-arching fly ball to right that was just out of the reach of a diving Hunter Pence.
By coughing up the three-run triple, Gearing has now allowed 12 of the 19 runners he's inherited this season to score.
Jorge Bonifacio capped off the Royals six-run inning by driving in Merrifield with a blooper to center.
Blach also ran into some hard luck in the third after Escobar and Gordon led off the inning with singles, and Vargas loaded up the bases with a perfectly placed bunt in between the pitcher's mound and third base.
Third baseman Eduardo Nunez didn't help Blach out on the play, retreating to the base instead of charging the ball and trying to get the out at first.
After Merrifield popped out, Bonifacio brought in a pair of runs with a line drive up the middle, giving the Royals a 2-1 lead.
As Blach suffered through a series of unfortunate events, Vargas (9-3) showed the Giants (26-40) why he's posted the second-lowest ERA in baseball this season. The Giants collected just one earned run on five hits over seven innings against the Royals ace, failing to build off the momentum of their season-high 13 runs and 17 hits against the Minnesota Twins on Sunday.
The Giants opened the scoring in the second when Buster Posey doubled to the left field corner, advanced on a groundout and scored on a sacrifice fly to center from Brandon Crawford.
Posey, who smacked three doubles on Sunday, went 2 for 3, improving his batting average to .408 over his last 13 games.
