Rockies 14, Giants 11

The Rockies grounds crew must have forgotten to turn on the humidor. Tonight's shootout reminded everyone of baseball in Denver in the mid-1990s, where every game was 14-11, or 12-10, or 15-14. Everything looked fantastic until that dreadful 6th inning. Nate Schierholtz homered off of a very tough lefty, Ryan Garko hit his first bomb as a Giant, and even Joe Martinez had two hits. But the 6th inning was a debacle of epic proportions, featuring an awful outing by Justin Miller (who's been very good overall this year), a rare defensive mistake by Schierholtz, and the Rockies deep lineup coming to life. Blowing a 6-1 lead in any ballpark is inexcusable, and tonight's loss makes last night's victory that much more of a relief. However, you had to expect that one of these four games was going to turn into a signature Rockies slugfest. You have to credit the Giants for making the end of this game interesting at the least, with Jim Tracy forced to bring in Huston Street to get the final two outs. Aaron Rowand has caught fire, hitting .542 with 3 HR in his last six games. Ryan Garko looks like he's shaken off his early struggles since joining the Giants, as he smacked two towering homeruns tonight. The Giants have obviously shown up to battle this series.

The Giants are still set up very nicely to leave Denver either with a split or a series win with Tim Lincecum going tomorrow and Barry Zito on the mound on Monday. Lincecum is almost always money after a Giants loss, and I'm calling it right here that he has a brilliant outing tomorrow to give the Giants a win.