The Giants were dead in the water against Zack Greinke, until they knocked him out of the game.
Tim Lincecum was headed for the worst outing of his career, until he figured it out. The lineup couldn't get a clutch hit, until it did.
Yes, there were signs of life Friday, but all that did was alter the final box score in another ugly defeat. The 6-4 loss to the Milwaukee Brewers was the fourth in a row for a team searching for answers to unfamiliar questions.
First among them: What do you do when your opening-day starter occasionally loses track of the strike zone?
As has been the case for much of the season, Lincecum looked lost in the first inning. He threw seven straight balls to open the game and recorded strikes on just two of his first 13 pitches.
Lincecum loaded the bases by hitting a batter and walking two. A wild pitch scored the first run, and Jonathan Lucroy's single brought two more Brewers home.
"That's no way to put your team in a position to win," Lincecum said. "I take a lot of responsibility for this game. Starting off the game like that, that's what your bullpen (session) is for and what mental preparation is for.
"At this level, it should take less time to fix those wrongs (than it is). It's a little different to have to kind of grind through things."
Lincecum had to grind in the second inning, too, after giving up a single and two more walks. But a line-drive out ended the inning. After looking
at film and finding a mechanical issue, Lincecum retired the next nine Brewers before being lifted for pinch-hitter Nate Schierholtz with two on in the fifth.Schierholtz had one hit in his previous 23 at-bats entering the game. He struck out.
"I'm sure his confidence is shaken," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He's in a tough stretch right now, but he's been playing for a while and you have to deal with this."
The strikeout looked like the latest misstep for a team that can't get a quality at-bat when it most needs one. The Giants entered the night with a .197 average with runners in scoring position, but after managing just a single and walk in the first four innings against Greinke, they temporarily halted the trend in the bottom of the sixth.
Trailing 4-1 after former Giant Travis Ishikawa brought a run home with a perfect suicide squeeze, the Giants rallied. Conor Gillaspie hit a leadoff single and scored on Melky Cabrera's triple. Buster Posey followed with a single, scoring Cabrera.
Posey took second on a ground out and third on a passed ball, and tied the game when Brandon Belt's hard grounder eluded second baseman Rickie Weeks for an error.
"They did a great job of letting me spit out that fish hook," Lincecum said.
He was purely a spectator at that point, and watched as the usually steady bullpen faltered.
Clay Hensley (1.17 ERA entering the night) allowed back-to-back singles in the seventh before giving way to Sergio Romo, who had given up just five hits over his last eight outings. Aramis Ramirez's single two batters later scored two.
"You're hoping for the bullpen to go out there and shut them down," Bochy said. "Their bullpen did a pretty good job on us."
Six of the final 10 Giants batters struck out as the team dropped to 2-5 on the homestand. All five losses have been by two runs or fewer.
"It's just got to improve, it's as simple as that," Lincecum said.
He was talking about himself but might as well have been speaking for the entire team.
- Angel Pagan extended his hitting streak to 18 games with a fifth-inning single. It is the longest current hitting streak in the majors.
- Ishikawa spent parts of four seasons with the Giants but never stepped foot in the visiting clubhouse until Friday. Now a Brewer, Ishikawa returned to San Francisco as a starting first baseman.
Ishikawa was inserted into the lineup after Mat Gamel tore the ACL in his right knee on Tuesday night. Gamel is likely done for the season, opening a door for Ishikawa and further validating his offseason decision to sign with the Brewers over the Giants and others.
"I can't complain," he said. "I'm very happy."
Ishikawa spent all of the 2011 season in Fresno, and said the organization's logjam at first base led him to look elsewhere when the Giants offered another minor-league deal.
- Bochy said Pablo Sandoval's hamate surgery Friday went very well. Sandoval was in the clubhouse before the game and in good spirits.
On Twitter, he said it is time to support his teammates, and wrote: "Everything (went) well today."
- Aubrey Huff (anxiety disorder) remains on schedule to come off the disabled list Monday, according to Bochy, and there's a good chance that he will rejoin the major league club right away rather than make a minor league rehab assignment.
Huff told the Associated Press that he hopes that's the case, adding, "A lot has been lifted off my chest the last two weeks."
- The Brewers did their early damage without reigning National League MVP Ryan Braun, who is day-to-day all with a sore Achilles. Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said he wasn't sure if Braun would be able to play in the three-game series.
For more on the Giants, see Alex Pavlovic's Giants Extra blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/Giants. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/AlexPavlovic.
Saturday's game
Milwaukee (Randy Wolf 2-2) at Giants (Madison Bumgarner 4-1), 1:05 p.m., FOX
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