Cain falters again in Giants’ loss to Mets

NEW YORK — Predicting wins and losses in a sport as tricky baseball can be a fool’s errand — most of the time.

Nobody strapped to a lie detector machine could deny a foreboding over this series for the Giants, with their still-balky offense forced to face a buzz-saw rotation and the troubled back end of their rotation entrusted with the first two games.

Nor can anyone express surprise that the Mets extended their win streak to eight games by preying on Jake Peavy and Matt Cain, who fell behind four runs in a heartbeat Saturday and allowed six runs in six innings in a 6-5 defeat.

Weather permitting, the Giants still have to face the Mets’ best starter, Noah Syndergaard, on Sunday to avert a sweep.

[...] the offense mustered two hits in six innings against Jacob deGrom, who teamed with his defense to gift the Giants three unearned runs in the third inning.

The Giants rallied in the eighth after Matt Duffy walked on 12 pitches to start the inning and they loaded the bases with nobody out.

Twice the Giants came close to blows that would have given them a lead, but they got only sacrifice flies against Hansel Robles when Hunter Pence’s bid for a grand slam died at the wall in center and Curtis Granderson leaped to snag a Brandon Crawford liner that seemed headed for the fence.

Cain threw four straight balls to Duda after two strikes to load the bases for Walker, who also fell behind 0-2 then floated a broken-bat single past second baseman Kelby Tomlinson’s glove for a two-run single in the first inning.

deGrom helped the Giants back into a 4-0 game by walking Buster Posey and Brandon Belt to force home a third-inning run after an Angel Pagan infield hit and a throwing error by the third baseman Flores.

Pence’s two-run single got the Giants to 4-3, but Belt was thrown out at third to end the inning and deprive Crawford a chance to tie the game.