The Giants’ deficit in the N.L. West stands at five games after a 7-0 loss to the Chicago Cubs on Monday night. But set that aside for a moment.

They have 27 more to play this season, and the way it’s going for their toe-tagged offense, maybe the goals need to change.

Maybe they should just try to reach the finish line without their clubhouse tearing itself apart.

“Get a different answer,” said manager Bruce Bochy, after canceling his postgame session in the interview room.

“It’s hard to figure what’s going on. Every day we come out here, we think we’re going to come out of it. It didn’t happen today. I know that can be discouraging, but we have to stay positive. That’s the only way I know: to keep coming out here working.

“We’ve tried different things, lineups, yelling, meeting, but it’s a tough rut, there’s no getting around it. So I’d encourage you to ask them instead of getting the same answers from me.”

Any illuminating thoughts, Carlos Beltran?

“There’s no way to explain it,” said the Giants’ key trade-deadline acquisition, who struck out twice and had a ground out and a pop-up as the Giants collected a season-low two hits. “We didn’t get anyone on base, and when we did, we didn’t put anything together. It is what it is.”

Tim Lincecum’s season is what it is, too: brilliance unrewarded.

Despite being one of the few Giants to improve from last year’s championship campaign, Lincecum (12-11) set a career

high for losses in a season — and he still has five starts remaining.

The explanation is simple. For the 10th time in Lincecum’s 28 starts, the Giants gave him zero runs. He is 0-7 with a 3.43 ERA in those 10 outings.

It played out again in frustrating fashion as Lincecum made one mistake and lost.

Except this time, he added a few more. Alfonso Soriano’s solo home run popped a shutout in the fifth inning, then Lincecum broke down in the seventh and allowed two more deep drives — the first time in his big league career he gave up three home runs in a start.

Geovany Soto hit a leadoff shot in the seventh. Then Lincecum walked pitcher Randy Wells, and shortstop Orlando Cabrera botched a potential double-play ground ball. Blake DeWitt followed by threading a three-run shot inside the right-field pole.

It was a shocking end for Lincecum, who had allowed three homers in his previous 14 starts combined. And if it was a letdown, you couldn’t blame him.

He remained calm and composed in front of reporters in a silent clubhouse, though, blaming himself for making “just three really (crappy) pitches.”

“At this time last year, we were in a similar spot, but we were gaining ground, not going backward,” Lincecum said. “It’s hard to keep your head up when things aren’t really going our way.”

Before the game, Bochy revealed that he summoned his entire rotation for a meeting Friday and commended them for how they were handling the lack of run support.

“I told them how important they are,” Bochy said. “I said, ‘Don’t get discouraged.’ They had a great attitude. It’s, ‘Hey, we’re all in this together.’ “

Nope, Lincecum isn’t alone. He actually entered with more average run support (3.17) than Madison Bumgarner (2.94).

But it’ll be hard to keep saying the right things as the playoffs become a faint hope. It’s starting to look like a miracle is needed for the Giants to catch the Arizona Diamondbacks and win consecutive N.L.

West titles for the first time in franchise history.

The Giants have lost 20 of their past 30 games while free-falling from a four-game lead to a five-game deficit.

The Giants made no noise of their own against Wells, although Andres Torres certainly tried. He walked and stole a base in the first inning, then doubled in the third. Mike Fontenot had the Giants’ only other hit — a pinch single in the eighth — as Wells threw his first career shutout.

“He pitched great,” Bochy said. “But everybody that is going out there is throwing great right now. That’s what makes it tough. They outplayed us, outpitched us, outdid everything against us.”

Tim Lincecum doesn’t often tip his cap to a standing ovation, but something compelled him to gesture as he walked off the mound on a cloudy Sunday afternoon at China Basin.

“I’ve never been one to do that,” Lincecum said. “But you could kind of tell … they were really, really wanting a win, or a lead.”

The Giants did not need a good pitcher, or even a very, very, very, very good one. They needed their ace to be great, and he found a way as the Giants beat the Philadelphia Phillies 3-1 to avoid what would have been a crushing, four-game sweep.

Lincecum provided the stopper performance, holding down the Phillies into the eighth inning. And the Giants, for all their embarrassment of base runners against right-hander Roy Oswalt, sprinkled in just enough hard contact in the clutch to win for the second time in 10 games.

It began with the Giants’ whippetlike whiz on the mound, even though it didn’t come easily. Lincecum, searching for rhythm, pitched out of the stretch with nobody on base. He didn’t have his slider. So he went to his patented fastball-changeup combination, knowing he used that sequence sparingly when he pitched 10 days earlier in Philadelphia. And it worked.

“I think he’s being himself,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “This is a great pitcher who’s won a couple Cy Youngs. That’s what I see.”

When the Giants’ ace won in Philadelphia, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel refused to call Lincecum great. What about

now?

“He pitched good,” Manuel said. “He was as good today as he was in Philly. We ran into a good pitcher.”

Stubborn semantics aside, there’s no disputing the Giants desperately needed to win. For all the talk about being outclassed by the Phillies, the Giants finished their season series a respectable 3-4 against them.

More important, the Giants entered the showdown series as a first-place team and exited it still atop the division — having lost just a half-game off their lead over the Arizona Diamondbacks.

“We’ve got the Diamondbacks at our heels, and we know that,” Lincecum said. “We don’t want to be content to win here or there. We want to use this as a hop to get on a winning streak.”

Bochy said: “The guys needed this. We needed this win. But we’ll have to get this offense going.”

It seemed to go in circles against Oswalt, who was making his first start after coming off the disabled list. At one point in the fifth inning, the Giants had 10 hits and just one run.

Even the National League’s worst offense couldn’t foul up so many opportunities. The Giants’ 0-for-22 streak with runners in scoring position, which dated back four games, finally ended after Pablo Sandoval hit a leadoff double in the fourth. But, comically, it took three hits to score him. Sandoval held on Aubrey Huff’s bloop single. Nate Schierholtz lined a one-out single to load the bases. Finally, Chris Stewart singled in the run.

The Giants kept getting base runners but scored only two more runs on a pair of sacrifice flies — Orlando Cabrera snapped a tie in the fifth, and Jeff Keppinger hit his in the sixth.

More worrisome: The Giants finished the game without Carlos Beltran, their key addition, who departed after feeling a twinge on the top of his right hand while taking a swing in the sixth inning. He had X-rays that were negative but is questionable to play Monday.

Lincecum (10-9) had his own scare in the eighth, when Chase Utley threw his bat at a change-up, and the flying wood struck Lincecum on the right knee. Utley came out to offer an apology, which Lincecum accepted, and he was able to continue.

Huff’s error prolonged the inning, and Javier Lopez was summoned to finish the eighth, which he did while stranding two runners. Then Brian Wilson, who hadn’t scooped up a save situation in 10 days, protected the lead in the ninth.

“I don’t work on commission,” Wilson said.

Lincecum’s victory was his first in August since 2009. He was 0-5 in the month last season, a personal trial that he came through with newfound dedication, mental toughness and physical fitness.

“Obviously there’s the factor of being in shape and letting your body allow you to do your thing,” he said, asked the year-over-year difference. “It’s finding your rhythm and trusting your stuff. Lately, I’ve been feeling really good out there.”

The Giants hope to keep that feeling going against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who enter with a 10-game losing streak.

For more on the Giants, see Andrew Baggarly’s Extra Baggs blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs.

Zito will start Sunday, then might go to bullpen

CINCINNATI — Giants manager Bruce Bochy confirmed that Barry Zito will take the mound Sunday, but even a strong outing might not be enough to save the left-hander’s place in the rotation.

In discussing when to reintroduce Jonathan Sanchez from the disabled list, Bochy mentioned that the club would need a starter Friday against the Philadelphia Phillies. Left unsaid: Friday is Zito’s day to pitch.

“We just think that’s a good place Jonny could go,” Bochy said.

Bochy said no decision has been made as to Sanchez’s next assignment. But when asked how he would deal with the delicate nature of wedging six accomplished starters into five spots, the manager said: “It’ll come down to who we think are the five guys who are throwing the best. It’s similar to what we had to do in the postseason. That was four starters and this is five, but it’s the same situation.”

In case anyone needs reminding: Zito was the odd man out in the postseason last year.

“We’ll have our five best going,” Bochy said. “I don’t know how else to do it.”

Symbolically, Tim Lincecum walked to the mound against Cincinnati on Saturday as the Giants’ last line of defense against the forces of panic and despair.

It’s not quite fair to pile all that responsibility upon anybody’s shoulders in any single game in June, but there it was.

Freddy Sanchez had just gone down to a serious shoulder injury. Buster Posey has been down and out for a few weeks, of course.

The season is still young, and the Giants are still clinging to first place in the National League West.

But if the Giants were going to have a chance to feel halfway good about themselves this weekend, Lincecum was the one who had to start the party music.

And it did not happen.

Instead, after the Reds’ 10-2 victory at AT&T Park, there was mostly thick silence in the Giants’ clubhouse.

“It’s not about carrying the team, it’s just being a large aspect of it, and doing your job,” Lincecum said after giving up seven earned runs in four-plus innings, one of the worst outings of his glorious career.

“And I didn’t do mine today.”

What happens to the defending World Series champions if they can’t hit, if they don’t have Posey, and if Lincecum isn’t on top of his game?

We saw it Saturday — the sense of anxiety was a tangible presence amid the murmuring and the head-scratching in the stands.

Lincecum has done so much for this franchise, when he doesn’t deliver, the air gets mighty arid.

“I

know it looked bad today,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We were off. Had a horrible game. This doesn’t happen very often. It just so happens it comes right after Freddy’s injury. These guys don’t make excuses.

“These guys, they’re not making excuses. “… It’s up to us to keep fighting. And these guys will.”

Usually, the charge starts with Lincecum, of course.

But this was the fourth consecutive — and easily the worst — sluggish outing for the two-time Cy Young winner, all dating to May 21, when Lincecum shut out the A’s.

In that game, Lincecum threw a season-high 133 pitches; that also was his last start before the Giants lost Posey, Lincecum’s trusted catcher, to a devastating ankle injury in late May.

In his four starts since, Lincecum has a 7.66 ERA, and his season ERA has gone from 2.06 to his current 3.41.

Lincecum had a similarly wobbly period last August, when he acknowledged some adjustment issues going from Bengie Molina to Posey behind the plate.

By last September, though, Lincecum was in lock step with Posey and was nearly perfect through the fall.

Right now, Lincecum is about as far from his September-October dominance as he can get.

“I still feel strong,” Lincecum said. “I don’t feel unhealthy. I don’t feel like anything’s bothering me. It’s just simply getting back to being me. Just driving to the plate, using the mechanics, keeping my rhythm.

“Kind of dumbifying myself, I guess you could say “… keeping it simple.”

Lincecum was all over the place from the outset, and the Reds were disciplined enough to make him pay; he threw 73 total pitches, only 36 for strikes.

He recorded only one strikeout, which, remarkably, is the lowest total of his career. In 136 previous outings (135 as a starter) — Lincecum had never recorded fewer than two strikeouts and had averaged 7.4 strikeouts per appearance.

That 133-pitch outing, in retrospect, sticks out like a sore statistical thumb.

“I don’t feel like it’s fatigue,” Lincecum said when asked about the effects of the May 21 game. “I don’t feel like I’m getting tired. I don’t feel like anything’s broken. I just feel like it’s a matter of just getting back to being me.”

That, perhaps, could suggest Lincecum has been thinking a little more on the mound now that he’s throwing to Eli Whiteside, not Posey.

In the third inning, there might have been a sign of some disconnect — with a runner on third, Lincecum threw a darting off-speed pitch that hit the dirt but looked stoppable.

Whiteside missed the ball, it skipped to the backstop, Brandon Phillips scored, putting the Reds up 3-0 and putting a scowl on Lincecum’s face.

Has the catcher change affected Lincecum at all?

“Not really,” Lincecum said. “Not at all. I mean, when you go out there, whether it’s with Whitey or (Chris) Stewart, you have to go out there and make pitches.”

Bochy said he continues to have the utmost confidence in Whiteside but added that he might get Stewart in there with Lincecum if the schedule works out right.

You count up all of the Giants’ woes, and you do have to ask: How much has to go wrong for them to be knocked out of first place?

At some point, it probably will come down to Lincecum, the Giants’ other key pitchers, and the refortifying of their last line of defense.

Read Tim Kawakami’s Talking Points blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami. Contact him at tkawakami@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5442.

In everywhere but the standings, the Giants seem so far removed from being a first-place club.

Their lineup is decimated by injuries, their offense is nonexistent, morale is shot and now their anchor, Tim Lincecum, is dragging in the mud again.

Lincecum had perhaps the worst start of his career and the Giants played with lethargy behind him, almost matching up like a Triple-A club as the Cincinnati Reds smoked them 10-2 Saturday afternoon.

Lincecum’s shoulders slumped as he allowed seven earned runs — tying his career high — and failed to retire a batter in the fifth inning. He didn’t strike out a batter after Drew Stubbs, who led off the game. It marked a career low for Lincecum, who had struck out at least two in each of his previous 136 starts.

Lincecum (5-5) had allowed as many as seven earned runs just once before in his career, June 16, 2007 against the Toronto Blue Jays.

It was his worst outing in what has become an alarmingly bad run. Whether you peg it to Buster Posey’s season-ending ankle injury on May 25 or Lincecum’s 133-pitch complete game on May 21, the two-time Cy Young Award winner hasn’t been the same since. He has a 7.66 ERA in his last four starts and definitely appeared to give in after Eli Whiteside tried to make a backhand stop on a wild pitch that squirted to the screen, scoring a run.

Whiteside, perhaps being exposed in an everyday role, also had more issues throwing to bases.

Meanwhile,

the Giants offense was limp against Mike Leake. By the end of the game, they featured a lineup of Emmanuel Burriss, Conor Gillaspie, Chris Stewart (at first base for the slumping Aubrey Huff, who was 0 for 3), Cody Ross, Nate Schierholtz, pitcher Santiago Casilla, Pat Burrell, Whiteside and newest Giant Bill Hall.

Hall entered as part of a double-switch when Lincecum was taken out in the fifth. He faced four batters in the inning, giving up an infield hit, a walk and then consecutive doubles to Brandon Phillips and Joe Votto.

Lincecum threw just 36 of 73 pitches for strikes.

Yet the Giants remain in first place, largely because of their pitching and the flawed contents of the NL West.

The Giants needed a two-run home run from Pat Burrell in the ninth to avoid being shut out for the seventh time this season.

For more on the Giants, see Andrew Baggarly’s Extra Baggs blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs.