By Morris Phillips

Thursday night’s lid lifter at the Yard was supposed to be just an exhibition, a friendly meeting of the A’s and Giants before things get serious on Monday, Opening Day for both teams.

But with Jake Peavy on the mound—lathered up, grimacing and cursing, grinding—it was hard to tell if this was an exhibition or not.

Brush backs, changing signs, a balk, controlling baserunners, and fooling ‘em occasionally with the out pitches slightly off the plate, Peavy did it all for 3 1/3 innings, a drama in 79 pitches including some high points but mostly lows in the Giants 8-2 loss.

So the books are closed on the 33-year old starter’s spring, and like much of the Giants’ opening day roster, the questions loom. Peavy allowed a whopping 21 earned runs in 23 2/3 innings over eight spring appearances—six of those earned runs allowed on Thursday—but he’s slated to take his turn in the rotation, either Thursday or Friday of next week in San Diego.

“I certainly don’t want my last dress rehearsal to be like it was tonight, but that being said, it doesn’t count,” Peavy said.

Along with Peavy, the Giants are concerned about Matt Cain, but to what degree would be speculation. After a fast start to his spring, Cain has dealt with soreness and command issues in recent weeks. But like Peavy, he’s a member of the rotation, scheduled to make his first start since July 9 next week in Arizona.

Given the Giants’ tried and true formula depends heavily on starting pitching, it would be fair to say the season could crumble if the trends and concerns continue unabated. But even that’s nothing new: in their miraculous 2014 season that ended with the Giants hoisting a third World Series trophy, they played sub-.500 ball for the final 98 games of the regular season.

So if nothing else, Giants’ fans need to be patient and see how it plays out.

NOTES: The high point for the Giants? Angel Pagan homered into the left field gap in the fourth, a fairly majestic shot that gave the home team fans something to cheer after the A’s put up seven unanswered runs to start the game.   Brandon Belt also went deep off reliever Pat Venditte in the ninth. The Giants had failed rallies in the second and eighth innings, and did very little against A’s starter Scott Kazmir who went six frames, only allowing the homer to Pagan. The Giants 1-2 hitters Nori Aoki and Joe Panik went a combined 0 for 6.

Ryan Vogelsong–bearded but otherwise recognizable by his normal, dead-serious demeanor—threw three innings of relief allowing one hit and striking out three. Vogey assumes a new role this season as the Giants’ long reliever. Jeremy Affeldt and Santiago Casilla also got in an inning of work each. In the absence of Hunter Pence, Justin Maxwell appears likely to get significant playing time in the outfield, but he’ll need to get familiar with the right field arcade. Sam Fuld’s blast high off the bricks bounced back past Maxwell and had to be played by Pagan rushing over from center. When Pagan misplayed the pickup, Fuld turned a triple into full trip around the bases with Pagan getting a one-base error.

On Friday night, Cain will start for the Giants with Kendall Gravemen going for the A’s at 7:15pm.