Giants win ninth straight over Rockies; Dinelson Lamet ineffective again

The enormous scoreboard at Coors Field went on the fritz for a couple of minutes in the first inning Tuesday night. That was the first omen that the Rockies were going to lose their ninth consecutive game to the Giants.

The second was right-hander Dinelson Lamet’s maddening lack of pitch command.

And so it goes.

The final: San Francisco 10, Colorado 4 in front of an announced crowd of 29,190, many of them cheering for the visitors. Colorado pitchers walked a season-high 11 hitters — one short of the franchise record —  in a truly ugly loss.

Daniel Bard walked four in the ninth, forcing in a run, in a game that took 3 hours and 28 minutes, the longest of the season for Colorado.

“It was a tough night for our guys. Pretty simple,” manager Bud Black said.

Then Black explained the difference between pitch command — the ability to throw the ball to desired spots within the strike zone — and control — the ability to simply throw strikes.

“Tonight we had no control,” Black said. “It’s frustrating. … It was about (lack of) fastball control.”

Weirdly, Colorado pitchers struck out a season-high 16 batters.

For the record, the Giants, who have won 15 of their last 20 games vs. the Rockies, climbed back to .500 with a 30-30 record. Colorado’s nine consecutive losses to San Francisco is the third-longest losing streak against a National League West foe in franchise history.

That Lamet needed 83 pitches (46 strikes) to wade through three messy innings tells you plenty about his performance. The fact that Colorado trailed just 3-0 when he departed was surprising, especially considering that the Giants had six hits off him, including four doubles.

“The biggest, most frustrating thing for me was that I take pride in trying to go at least five innings deep in a game,” Lamet said.

Manager Bud Black continues to say that Lamet has “good stuff,” which is the primary reason why a pitcher with a 12.42 ERA is part of the Rockies’ injured, reeling rotation. Colorado has already used 11 starting pitchers this season, the most in the majors, and the 289 innings pitched by starters are the fewest.

Little wonder that Colorado’s bullpen, so good for the first two months of the season is starting to show cracks in the foundation.

Actually, there are times when Lamet flashes the stuff Black talks about, and Tuesday night, his life preserver was his four strikeouts. He fanned Thairo Estrada and Michael Conforto in the first inning to strand two Giants. He struck out two more in the second to limit the damage when the Giants sent nine men to the plate but came away with just two runs on back-to-back doubles by Patrick Bailey and Brandon Crawford and an RBI single by Estrada.

San Francisco took a 3-0 lead in the third on Mitch Haniger’s double and Patrick Bailey’s triple off the wall in right-center. He also mashed two doubles.

Rockies long reliever Peter Lambert fared no better than Lamet. Lambert gave up three runs on three hits in 1 1/3 innings. Most disconcerting, he walked four batters and needed 55 pitches in his short stint.

“I really didn’t have too much feel out there tonight,” said Lambert, who has a 6.41 ERA. “It was throwing a lot of balls. I really didn’t have command of any of my pitches tonight. My go-to pitch, my changeup, I couldn’t really throw it.”

Colorado’s lineup, meanwhile, never really solved San Francisco’s cadre of four pitchers, managing nine hits compared to the Giants’ 14, including eight doubles.

Colorado finally got on the board in the fourth on a one-out triple by Randal Grichuk, who slid safely home on Nolan Jones’ roller to third baseman J.D. Davis. The Rockies added another run in the fifth on Jurickson Profar’s RBI double to score Charlie Blackmon.

Profar (4 for 5) also tripled in a run in the seventh and scored on Ryan McMahon’s double. Profar finished a home run short of the cycle.

Bryant, Cron updates. Right fielder Kris Bryant is making a bit of progress as he recovers from the bruised left heel that landed him on the injured list, retroactive to May 31. Black continues to say that the injury is not a repeat of plantar fasciitis that plagued Bryant for much of last season when Bryant was limited to 42 games.

“He’s getting better,” Black said before Tuesday’s game. “His heel’s improving. He’s going to come out on the field today and play catch. He’s not going to run. He might take some batting practice. His challenge will be running because his heel hurts.”

First baseman C.J. Cron, out since May 14 with lower-back spasms, remains at least a week away from returning to the lineup. Cron’s spasms returned last week when he was taking ground balls, and he’s still not close to baseball ready.

“He’s improving,” Black said. “He’s still probably a week away from baseball activities — ground balls, swinging the bat, running.”