DENVER _ The Giants have found every which way to lose to the Colorado Rockies this season.
They needed anesthetic for the latest one Sunday afternoon.
The Giants took the lead on Hunter Pence's first career pinch home run in the ninth inning, but sore-armed closer Mark Melancon blew it in the bottom of the inning. Nolan Arenado hit a stunning, three-run home run as the Rockies won 7-5 in front of a delirious crowd at Coors Field.
It had to be the most dramatic way a major league player hit for the cycle in history. Arenado already had the triple, the double and the single. His home run was like popping a wheelie.
The Rockies had never swept a four-game series from the Giants, home or road, in their franchise history. They have never won an NL West title, either. One down, then. Another to go.
The Rockies continued to press down their thumbs on the Giants, beating them for the 10th time in 11 games while knocking the contenders turned pretenders 19 { games behind them in the NL West.
Pence had tried to talk his way into Sunday's lineup, and why not? He is more persuasive than a timeshare salesman. He has made a career of playing every inning of every game. He can talk his way past any velvet barricade.
It should not come as a surprise, then, that Pence had played in 1,426 games over 11 major league seasons and had just 20 appearances as a pinch hitter. It is not in his nature to stay warm or loose in cramped cages.
But Pence had an awful time in right field over three games here. He was fouling so many pitches down the middle of the plate. He could not talk his way into Sunday's lineup at Coors Field, and it was beginning to become fair game to wonder if the Giants' 35-year-old amateur philosopher was reaching the end as an everyday player.
Then came one startling swing in the ninth inning. Pence came off the bench and slugged the first pinch home run of his career, a two-run shot against left-hander Jake McGee that erased a one-run deficit.
Gorkys Hernandez drew a one-out walk and Pence fouled off the first pitch before ripping his game-changing shot. The Giants added a run when Joe Panik singled, took second base on a botched pickoff play and scored on Brandon Crawford's double.
Melancon needed the extra run, and more. He was pitching for just the third time in June, his absence due to a paucity of save chances along with a sore elbow that he has attempted to tread around with mixed success.
The Rockies strung together three consecutive one-out singles to get within a run. They had runners at the corners and Melancon was a pitch away from escaping. But Arenado did not oblige with a double-play grounder.
It was Melancon's fourth home run allowed this season, matching his total from last year. Melancon's fourth blown save (in 14 chances) also matched his total from last year (in 51 chances).
Before both teams combined for seven runs in the ninth, Ty Blach looked to be the story of the game in a losing effort.
Blach grew up in Colorado. His lungs and legs are equipped to endure here. His pitches are designed to grow the same results _ ground ball outs and pop-ups _ regardless of barometric pressure.
But a middle-middle mistake cost the Giants the lead in the seventh inning Sunday afternoon. And two batters later, even Blach could not resist the concussive charms of Coors Field.
Trevor Story hit a tying home run on a pitch over the heart of the plate, then Pat Valaika popped up an inside offering that snuck into the left field seats as the Colorado Rockies took a 3-2 lead.
The two pitches that made the difference left Blach's hand, but blame the Giants' staccato offense. A team that scored nine and eight runs in high-pitched losses Thursday and Friday could not produce when they received competitive starts to make winners of Matt Cain on Saturday or Blach on Sunday.
Blach gave them a gem. He made pitches with runners in base, showed poise when the Rockies looked most ready to pounce and had a shutout until the sixth when Arenado's double followed a leadoff walk.
Blach got two pop-ups and a ground out to strand Arenado in scoring position and preserve a 2-1 lead. Giants manager Bruce Bochy showed no hesitation to let Blach hit for himself to start the seventh, and sent him back to the mound in the bottom of the inning against the last three hitters in Colorado's lineup.
But Story crushed a mistake. And Valaika came off the bench all geared up to swing at the first pitch. Blach's inside fastball had a hit probability of just 14 percent, according to Statcast. It left the bat with a launch angle of 41 degrees _ a souped up pop fly, essentially. Just 23 of the more than 2,500 home runs hit this season have been hit at that angle or higher.
The Giants' only runs before the ninth came in the fifth, when Crawford hit his second opposite-field home run of the series to give the Giants a 2-0 lead.
They lamented a combination of bad baserunning and lousy luck in the first inning, when Denard Span got a poor read on Crawford's single up the middle and stopped at third base. Buster Posey followed with a rocket off the bat that Rockies second baseman DJ LeMahieu speared after a hop. LeMahieu, as if swinging on a trapeze, flung his body and the baseball to Story, who accepted it and stamped a foot before a stunned Crawford, who did not slide, could find second base. Story's one-motion throw to first base arrived in plenty of time to beat Posey.
Crawford was ruled safe on the field and Span was credited with a run, but it was taken off the board following a replay review that resulted in an inning-ending double play.
