By Jeremy Harness

AP photo: San Francisco Giant reliever Joe Nathan’s reaction after giving up the game winning double to the Colorado Rockies Cristhian Adames in the bottom of the ninth at Coors Field on Wednesday

The Giants just keep on losing games at an eye-popping level, and the bullpen – which seems to find more creative ways to blow leads – has had a lot to do with that. That showed up again in a huge, gut-wrenching way Wednesday night.

They had a two-run lead going into the bottom of the ninth against Colorado, but the bullpen – particularly closer Santiago Casilla, who is turning into the new-but-not-so-improved version of Armando Benitez – did what it has done for much of the second half.

It quickly surrendered that lead, and Casilla was not around to see the end of it. That honor was handed to the newly-acquired Joe Nathan, who gave up the game winning hit – a driving double off the bat of pinch-hitter Cristhian Adames – to send the Giants into the dugout in a rather-somber mood, 6-5 losers at the hands of the Rockies.

That has been quite a familiar theme for the Giants in the second half, which has seen the team complete squander a sizable lead in the National League West and are barely hanging on to the NL’s wild-card lead, by a half game, to be exact.

The way things are going, that will not change any time soon.

Unless the bullpen suddenly turns into either the 2010 or the 2012 version of itself – which, at this point, is as likely as O.J Simpson finding “the real killers” – the choke will soon become complete, with the Giants missing the postseason altogether and officially putting an end to the much-ballyhooed even-numbered pattern of World Series titles.

At this rate, it also appears that the 49ers will end up winning as many games this month than the Giants will, particularly if the offense cannot get its act together and provide some run support, an occurrence that has been increasingly rare these days.

In the meantime, the Giants have now won only two games in the month of September after dropping two of the three games played in Colorado, and the Giants now head to Arizona to take on the Diamondbacks.

There is hope for the Giants here, since Arizona just finished getting swept by the surging Dodgers – who look like they are going to run away with the division title at this point – in Los Angeles. But then again, the Giants appeared to be primed to get off to a hot start to the second half with a three-game series with the San Diego Padres teed up perfectly for them.

Instead, as we all know now, the Padres – as has just about every other team in the National League in the past couple of months – teed off on the Giants.

If the Giants do not find a way to right this ship and do it very quickly, we could be very well talking about a collapse unlike many others in franchise history.