D’Backs serve Giants seventh straight loss

Happy 60th birthday, Bruce Bochy, here’s a 12-inning loss.

The Giants extended their losing streak to seven games Thursday night with a 7-6 extra-innings loss to the Diamondbacks.

The last time this club lost so many consecutive games was July 2010. Last year’s team was able to snap their losing streak at six, even during its epic June-July slump.

After more than four hours of baseball, Bochy was not happy:

“It’s not fun to lose seven in a row…But I liked the fight in them tonight.”

Thursday’s loss, though painful for San Francisco, had its perks.

The Giants’ offense wasn’t trotting zombie-like inning to inning. They strung some key hits together and a few struggling hitters stepped out of their own shadow against Rockies starter Archie Bradley, posing a legitimate walk-off threat in the late innings.

San Francisco flew onto the board early thanks to a Buster Posey RBI single in the first that broke his eight at-bat hitless streak.

Madison Bumgarner made very few mistakes in his seven-inning, 94-pitch outing. But two missed pitches did him in: An 0-2 slider that Mark Trumbo crushed to left for a solo shot, and a scorching fastball in the zone that Paul Goldschmidt skied to left for three.

Bumgarner experienced some issues with his mechanics in San Diego. He said he improved in Thursday’s start, but made costly errors:

“Made a few mistakes, apart from those, felt pretty good about it…Trumbo’s (pitch) was worse because it was a two-strike pitch, shouldn’t have been giving him enough to hit…I felt pretty good about making (Goldschmidt’s pitch) but he’s one of the best in the game for a reason.”

The pair of homers marked the first time since June 2013 that Bumgarner surrendered multiple home runs in a game.

Said Bochy of Bumgarner’s performance:

“He threw well, he just made two mistakes that left the ballpark.”

Brandon Crawford, who was riding a 23 at-bat hitless streak, filled in some of the hole that Bumgarner dug when he sent a two-run shot into Levi’s Landing in the seventh to cut the Giants’ deficit to one run, the score 4-3.

The bats began to really hit up in the ninth, starting with a Posey leadoff single. Brandon Belt flied out and Matt Duffy advanced Posey to second with a grounder. Joe Panik followed with a towering two-out triple to right that sent Posey home and tied the game at 4-4.

But, with the bases eventually loaded, they couldn’t break the tie and AT&T Park fans got its first taste of free baseball this season.

It looked like the Giants were headed to walk-off town, but with Santiago Casilla on the mound, A.J. Pollock bounced a solo homer off the left field foul pole to put the D’Backs back on top.

Then, in the bottom of the 10th, a slew of hits and walks loaded the bases for Matt Duffy, who sent a soft grounder to short stop Nick Ahmed, who fumbled it enough to let Blanco score and tie it back up at 5-5.

The score finally settled at 7-6, in the D’Back’s favor, when Aaron Hill sent a double to left off Sergio Romo with two runners in scoring position.

The late-inning frenzy was an offensive triumph for Arizona. All the hits from Posey, Panik, Duffy and Pagan came a bit too late and wasn’t enough to top the Diamondbacks bats.