CINCINNATI _ Let's just hope Willie Mays didn't waste his 86th birthday watching the Giants on TV.
Bruce Bochy's team has had a devil of a time carrying over momentum from its sprinkling of encouraging wins this season. But the Giants sure can carry the stench of a bad loss into the next day.
No aerosol could cover left-hander Ty Blach, who became the first Giants pitcher in more than a decade to give up 10 runs in a start. His mates weren't any more competitive in a 14-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds at Great American Ball Park Saturday night.
One day after the Giants allowed 13 runs and issued 12 walks in an unsightly loss, they cracked another vanity mirror. An error from second baseman Kelby Tomlinson didn't help as the Reds teed off for 10 runs (eight earned) in Blach's three innings.
The Giants' 27 runs allowed are their most in consecutive games since a 2006 series at Coors Field.
Combined with Matt Cain's outing on Friday and Matt Moore's rough one at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday, the Giants have watched three starting pitchers give up at least nine runs _ something that had never happened in the span of one rotation turn in the Giants' modern franchise history.
The Giants already began the day with the worst run differential in the major leagues. By the end, it stood at minus-58. Even at an NL-worst 11-20, they are outperforming their Pythagorean record.
The Giants are only a fifth of the way through the season. It will take several more fifths to get through it. Johnny Cueto will take the ball and hope to keep his blistered finger from heating up in Sunday's series finale.
He is almost guaranteed to represent an improvement. Not only did the Reds score in each of the first five innings Saturday, but they have scored in 13 of 16 innings against the Giants in the series.
Some lemon juice on that cut: former Giant Adam Duvall hit an upper-deck shot off Blach in the first inning, his ninth homer of the season. The Giants' team leader, Brandon Belt, has four.
Patrick Kivlehan and Eugenio Suarez also went deep, but leadoff man Billy Hamilton continued to be the thorniest player in the Reds lineup. He opened the game with a triple, hit a two-run double in the second inning and singled in the third. He also made a sprinting, leaping catch of Eduardo Nunez's drive at the wall in the second inning to turn a bases-clearing hit into a sacrifice fly.
Hamilton is more likely to straddle the Mendoza line than contend for a batting crown, but he is the dynamic presence the Giants have lacked atop their lineup and in center field this season.
Blach entered with a 2.55 ERA but threw fluff at the belt against a hot lineup in a hitter's yard. He became the first Giant since Jamey Wright in 2006 to give up 10 runs in a start, and the first Giant to do so against the Reds since Slick Castleman gave up 15 in a start at Crosley Field in 1936.
And to think, the Reds almost let the Giants back into the game. After taking a 2-0 lead, they loaded the bases with no outs in the second inning on a pair of walks from Amir Garrett and a fly ball that clanked off Kivlehan's glove in right field for an error. But Hamilton minimized Nunez's drive, and after Gorkys Hernandez hit an RBI double, he ran into an out on the bases to minimize the inning.
The Reds immediately reclaimed the lead in the bottom of the second when Tomlinson booted Jose Peraza's grounder, Kivlehan singled and Hamilton slapped a two-run double.
