Giants slug 4 HRs but blow late lead to drop series vs Rockies

DENVER — It took until the last game of the series at Coors Field this weekend before a lead changed hands, almost unheard of in the mile-high ballpark that practically births chaos.It didn’t go in the Giants’ favor.Kyle Karros jacked a mammoth three-run homer in the eighth inning that flipped a two-run Giants advantage into a 7-6 defeat, sending them to their second series loss in as many tries against the lowly Rockies, one of two National League teams below them in the standings.The go-ahead blast landed 471 feet away, at the very top of the left field bleachers, and marked only the second time Colorado had scored against the Giants’ bullpen this series.It came against Dylan Smith, the seventh reliever summoned the past two days by manager Tony Vitello and the first who wasn’t able to get the job done.Smith struck out the Rockies’ biggest threat, Hunter Goodman, to begin the eighth and got two strikes on the next batter, TJ Rumfield.But the rookie went the opposite way to sneak a double down the left-field line, and nothing went right from then on.Smith hit Troy Johnston with his next pitch, and fell behind 3-1 to Karros.

He attacked him high and inside and Karros was waiting for it.  Before Smith, the Giants bullpen had limited the Rockies to just one run over seven innings the past two games.But the dam burst, souring the flight back to San Francisco.Rafael Devers homered twice to take the team lead with 18, Casey Schmitt kept pace with his 17th of the season and Drew Gilbert matched a career-high with four hits, finishing a triple away from the cycle.But it was all for naught once things went south in the bottom of the eighth.Vitello didn’t like the way Gilbert handled himself the last time he was in the Giants’ starting lineup, four games ago, in Wednesday’s loss to the Diamondbacks.The manager thought his former star at the University of Tennessee allowed his pop out in the ninth inning of a 5-4 loss the night before to affect his play ...