By Morris Phillips

OAKLAND–The whole process of going from red hot to hot under the collar took 6 2/3 innings for the Giants. At the conclusion, the team’s ability to execute the basics, starting with catching the ball, were in question.

Talk about a precipitous drop.

On Tuesday, the Giants led 4-1 in the 6^th inning, and were in position to even their series with their Bay rival, the A’s, and capture their 14^th win in their last 17 contests. Instead, the Giants’ bullpen imploded in what would become a 13-11 loss. Then the defense folded its’ tents in the first three plus innings on Wednesday, as the Giants went on to lose 7-1.

Along the way, Wednesday’s starter, Jake Peavy could be seen asking anyone capable of forming an answer, “What just happened?”

Well, what happened was the Giants allowed the A’s 19 runs—on just 14 hits—while contributing seven walks and four errors. A streak where that many guys cross the plate in such a short period doesn’t happen once a season, maybe once every couple of seasons. Somehow, given all that went wrong, a bunch of the focus landed on the leaky defense.

“That’s one thing we were doing well—catching the ball,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “You deal with streaks where you have trouble scoring runs, but one thing we have to do is consistently catch the ball.”

The first of the errors came with the Giants leading 4-3 on Tuesday. Marcus Semien’s ground ball to third could have been the final out of the inning, and preserved the Giants’ lead. But Conor Gillaspie air mailed his throw to first allowing Semien to reach, and baserunner Stephen Vogt to advance to third. Two batters later, the A’s would take their first lead of the night on Billy Butler’s two RBI single.

On Wednesday, the defense got so bad, Peavy could be seen cursing and muttering almost until Bochy relieved him with the Giants trailing 7-0. In that inning, Angel Pagan had a bead on Semien’s drive to the left field warning track, but then the ball glanced off Pagan’s glove and Semien ended up at third. Peavy lost it at that point, then allowed an RBI double to Billy Burns and a RBI single to Coco Crisp before he was relieved.

At that point, the Giants had already suffered a collision between infielder Ramiro Pena and outfielder Mac Williamson on a ball that dropped for a three-base error, and put Pena on the disabled list with the former Yankee expected to be unavailable for at least a week. Two batters later, Williamson appeared to have Jed Lowrie’s home run ball in his glove, but saw the ball go out when it bounced out of the outfielder’s glove.

New addition, Reuben Tejada, got the start at third in place of the injured Matt Duffy, and he then muffed Josh Reddick’s foul pop. Reddick then drew a walk to extend the inning.

“We didn’t handle a popup, no question it changed the game. It made Jake work a lot harder. He was in a good groove there. Then we drop another popup. We just got to clean it up. That’s the one thing we were doing very well,” Bochy said.

The Giants have dropped three straight to the A’s after winning 13 of 15. Clearly, part of the problem was a stressful, laborious, but successful series over the weekend with the Phillies. That definitely took a lot out of the Giants. Another factor is the A’s are having their best stretch of the season, after falling into last place in the AL West and more than 10 games below .500. The A’s have won six of seven and seen their offense pick up dramatically during the streak.

A’s starter Sean Manaea came off the disabled list and pitched into the sixth inning on Wednesday, shutting the Giants down by scattering six hits and a walk allowed. Manaea is one of three rookie starters the Giants will face in this series, with Dillon Overton scheduled to start for Oakland on Thursday.

Madison Bumgarner, poised to become the first starter to hit in an American League Park since Ken Brett in 1976, will get the start for the Giants.