DENVER _ No lead is safe at Coors Field. Not even when you change closers. Not even when the new guy ranks eighth all-time with 377 career saves.
The Giants turned away from Santiago Casilla when he ran into trouble in the ninth inning, but Bruce Bochy's other options did not pan out in a stunning, 6-5 loss to the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night.
Six-time All-Star Joe Nathan gave up a bases-loaded double to Cristhian Adames that clanked off the right field scoreboard, as the Giants blew a two-run lead in the ninth to let another series slip away.
Casilla did not blow the save, but he had a huge hand in it. So did left fielder Angel Pagan, who got a bad jump on Nick Hundley's catchable fly ball that landed in left field.
As a result, the Giants dropped two of three at Coors Field and they lead the NL wild-card race by just a half-game over the St. Louis Cardinals and New York Mets.
Casilla had saved a one-run game the previous night, although he might have gotten away with a couple of location mistakes. But Nolan Arenado seldom shows the Giants mercy, especially two days in a row. With the Giants leading 5-3, he opened the ninth by hitting Casilla's two-strike pitch into the left field seats.
When Tom Murphy hit a one-out single, Bochy went for matchups over loyalty. He brought in left-hander Josh Osich, who hit pinch hitter Charlie Blackmon with a pitch.
Then came Nathan, whose only save as a Giant was in his sixth big league appearance as a rookie in 1999 at Houston, when he struck out Jeff Bagwell in the 11th inning.
Nathan got Hundley to hit a fly ball that hung in the air, but Pagan didn't immediately start for it. The ball barely eluded his outstretched glove to load the bases.
With no margin for error, Nathan's 1-1 pitch to Adames was lifted to right field and sent the Rockies running onto the field in jubilation.
The ninth-inning uprising made it impossible for Brandon Belt to enjoy the longest home run of his career. His 457-foot shot snapped a tie and gave the Giants a 3-1 lead in the second inning.
Gorkys Hernandez made his 29th birthday a festive occasion while hitting his first big league homer since 2012, Hunter Pence added an RBI double and the Giants' six extra-base hits appeared a gluttonous excess in the context of this lean road trip.
Albert Suarez continued to be the definition of serviceable while allowing three runs in five innings, although that kind of start earns you a bit firmer pat on the rear in this ballpark.
Suarez has yet to allow more than three earned runs in any of his nine starts this season, which ranks as the longest run of its kind by a Giant at the outset of his career since Ryan Jensen (11) in 2001.
Suarez was able to minimize a first inning that could have gone sideways after giving up three two-out hits, including David Dahl's RBI single. Dahl took second base when Pence's throw to the plate was too high for Belt to cut it off.
But with two runners in scoring position, Suarez got the ground ball from Murphy to escape.
Suarez sustained just one other blip, when Dahl and Murphy hit back-to-back shots _ on an 0-2 count and 1-2 count, respectively _ in the fourth. Other than that, Suarez allowed just two other baserunners and erased them with a double-play grounder and a pickoff.
The pickoff came after he issued a one-out walk to speedy Raimel Tapia in the fifth, and allowed him to finish the inning on DJ Le Mahieu's ground out. It's not likely that Bochy would have allowed Suarez to face Carlos Gonzalez, who was on deck.
Left-hander Steven Okert laid claim to the title of undisputed best fifth lefty in a big league bullpen, going through the heart of the Rockies order and striking out Arenado on a changeup in the sixth. Although the Giants have returning left-handed bullpen options in Will Smith and Osich, Okert's name figures to be bandied about plenty when the Giants front office meets to set up their offseason and roughly sketch the 2017 roster.
Hunter Strickland dominated in the seventh and Bochy played matchups to get through the eighth. But his 14-man bullpen had no answer in the ninth.
