The Giants are spiraling again, and the narrow road to October is disappearing

Want the latest Bay Area sports news delivered to your inbox? Sign up here to receive regular email newsletters, including “The Dime.”

PHOENIX – The Giants keep losing their must-win games. They keep playing some of their worst ball of the season at the worst possible time. They keep playing their way further out of the playoff race.

That road to October is coming closer to a dead end.

The Giants lost 6-5 to the Diamondbacks Tuesday night on a walk-off, check-swing roller that closer Ryan Walker said he should have fielded. It was their fourth straight loss and pushed them under .500 for the first time in September.

“Baseball can be tough sometimes,” Walker said. “It doesn’t go your way all the time, but we’re going to go out there with the same mindset to get in the wild-card spot and continue to fight.”

Like Saturday, when the Giants struck for four first-inning runs off Clayton Kershaw, they put up a 4-spot in the first Tuesday off another left-hander, Eduardo Rodríguez. However, the Giants’ offense went silent after that beyond Wilmer Flores’ third-inning homer.

“We came out aggressive with the fastball, and I guess Rodríguez made an adjustment and got away from the fastball,” Flores said. “Still, we should have put more runs on the board. Gotta keep pushing if we want to win that game.”

This was the same Eduardo Rodríguez who held the Giants scoreless through 6⅓ innings in his previous start, at Oracle Park. Once Rodríguez was pulled Tuesday, the Giants went hitless and walkless off four relievers. It came a day after the Giants managed just two hits in an 8-1 series-opening loss.

“It’s frustrating. It’s frustrating,” manager Bob Melvin said. “All these games we lose are frustrating, especially against the lefty that we’ve had trouble against and had a tough time against last time. To be able to score four in the first and get another one in the third; after that, it didn’t even feel like we got a baserunner.”

So here’s the math: 11 games remain, and the Giants are three games behind the Mets for the final wild-card spot – essentially four, because the Mets own the tiebreaker. Not surprisingly, the websites that calculate playoff odds are not kind to the Giants, who have a 4.7% chance of reaching the postseason, according to baseballreference.com, and a mere 1.8% according to FanGraphs.

Meanwhile, the Diamondbacks are at 23.1% and 9.5%, respectively. They’ve won four straight games and have been more athletic, sharper on defense, and more aggressive on the basepaths than the Giants. Curiously, the Diamondbacks are back in the playoff hunt after moving many of their top players at the trade deadline, including Eugenio Suarez, Josh Naylor, Randal Grichuk, Merrill Kelly, and Shelby Miller.

By the way, the Diamondbacks also own the tiebreaker over the Giants, who have one more game in Phoenix before playing a four-game series at Dodger Stadium and finishing the season with three home games against both the Cardinals and Rockies.

One of the more streaky teams in recent memory, the Giants need another winning stretch to have any hope for a miracle finish.

“We need a good one,” Flores said. “We have it in us.”

Tuesday’s game was strange and full of unusual developments. Seventh inning, for example: Bases loaded, grounder to Flores at first base, he moved his feet as if he’d get an out at the bag and throw home for an inning-ending double play but ultimately chose just to throw home to retire the lead runner. The right play, in retrospect; he might not have had time to do both, and that kept the game tied.

The next play was a chopper to the right side, and Blaze Alexander was called for runner’s interference because he collided with Flores, ending the inning.

The ninth brought more weirdness: Jung Hoo Lee failed to run out a routine grounder to first in the top of the inning, apparently thinking the ball hit off his foot, and was the final out.

In the home half, Corbin Carroll opened with a single off Walker, who walked the next batter to push Carroll to second. When Alexander bunted, Walker picked up the ball and fired it to second baseman Casey Schmitt, who was covering first — except Schmitt never put his foot on the base.

“There’s a lot of new things for Casey at second base, but one of them is that he’s got to get on the bag,” Melvin said. “Obviously he didn’t, and that was a huge part of the game.”

Bases loaded for Jordan Lawlar. Walker got ahead 1-2 and fooled Lawlar with a slider low and away. Lawlar took an excuse-me swing and barely made contact: 44.7 mph exit velocity. The ball rolled to the right side, and Walker pursued it but didn’t get his glove down enough.

Flores threw home, but way too late to catch the speedy Carroll.

“I missed that,” said Walker, who slammed his glove on the dugout bench after the loss. “I’m taking full responsibility for that one.”

He wasn’t the only one to blame. Fundamental baseball was lacking on several fronts.

This was a bullpen game for the Giants — not a good sign for a team with so many reliever woes of late. Tristan Beck failed to keep the Diamondbacks down, yielding three runs in the second inning. Trevor McDonald, called up from Triple-A Sacramento Tuesday, gave up two more runs in the fifth, making the score 5-5.

Walker was charged with the decisive run, and over the four-game losing streak, the bullpen has surrendered 22 earned runs in 19 innings. 

More must-win games are coming, and the Giants can’t afford to keep losing them all.