By Morris Phillips

Nothing’s bigger than recording the last out of a ballgame, but you can’t logically get to that point if you don’t some enthusiasm and aptitude for recording the first out.

On Tuesday, the Giants needed their best foot forward if they were going to beat the scorching-hot Cubs for the first time this year after five, damaging losses.  But when the Cubs’ leadoff man Kyle Schwarber sent a sky-high pop up between the mound and home plate, Buster Posey and starting pitcher Jake Peavy turned into physical comedians.

Both pitcher and catcher converged, intent on catching the ball, but when Peavy’s chest ever so slightly bumped Posey’s shoulder, the follies began.  Posey retreated as if his services weren’t needed, Peavy fell over and the ball landed untouched between the two.

The sellout crowd at AT&T Park—intent on seeing their home nine get after it, not a circus act—gasped with horror.

So much for initial impressions.

The Cubs went on to score twice in the inning, but the Giants got serious and struck right back with two of their own.   After that thing settled down and the Giants used a pair of runs in the sixth to propel them to a 4-2 win.

“It really comes down to the first inning, both ways though.  They gave us some runs, we gave them some runs and then eventually they got us in the end,” expansive Cubs manager Joe Maddon concluded.

“We weren’t going to win them all.  Sorry.”

The win allowed the Giants to stop the bleeding in the hunt for the final wild card spot—the Giants still trail Chicago by 6 ½ games—and more importantly, kept them with striking distance of the Dodgers, 2 ½ games up in the NL West.

And believe it or not, that aforementioned comedic duo, Peavy and Posey, settled down and made some serious contributions in the context of the game.

Peavy—still smarting from his 2-0 loss in Chicago on August 9—settled in for six plus innings, allowing just three hits after the rocky first.  Posey, mired in a slump that has the whole town ruffled, came up with the tie-breaking double in the sixth.

Posey looked fatigued and was virtually invisible on last week’s 2-5 road trip.  In the sixth, after Brandon Belt led off with a triple that eluded a diving Chris Denorfia in centerfield, Posey came up in a big spot.  And while he had just four hits in his previous 35 at-bats, Posey’s been hungry like the Werewolf of London this season with runners in scoring position.

And he delivered, sending Kyle Hendricks slightly elevated offering into triples alley, scoring Belt.  Two batters later, rookie Kelby Tomlinson, swinging at the first pitch, doubled into the right field corner, scoring Posey.

That quick, the Giants had a lead.  How big was that?

In the four-game sweep engineered by the Cubs over the Giants two weeks ago at Wrigley Field, the Cubs scored in the first inning in all four games.  So of the 36 innings of baseball that weekend, the Giants held a lead in all of one inning.

Then last night, the Cubs didn’t score in the initial frame, but roughed up Matt Cain in the third and fourth to lead 6-0.  Again, the Giants never held a lead.

The Cubs—hotter than ’03, and just as smokin’ as ’96—came in winners of 21 of 25, a run so hot it had only been duplicated twice (1903, 1996) in their franchise’s 100-plus year history.  Still in third place in the NL Central, but holding the majors’ fourth-best record, the lovable losers look like shoe-ins for the post-season, due to the momentum of the run and in no small part based on how they’ve mistreated the World Champs.  But on Wednesday, it was the Giants’ turn to strike back.

Maddon, for one, appreciated the teaching tools.

“We have some really inexperienced people that are learning on the fly right now.  And I love it.”

That was the former Rays manager’s response when asked about two critical at-bats in the seventh, after Peavy departed with two runners aboard.  First, rookie Addison Russell was cooled by reliever Hunter Strickland, and then the super-hot Schwarber was tamed by lefty specialist Javier Lopez, striking out on four pitches.

Peavy, watching intently in the dugout, felt it was a critical moment.

“The pro he is, he was ready,” Peavy said of Lopez.  “We were excited to have him in that moment, that matchup.”

On Thursday, the Giants say adieu to the Cubs as Dan Haren draws Madison Bumgarner in the series finale.