SAN FRANCISCO — San Francisco Giants general manager Zack Minasian attempted something dangerous Thursday morning. He went on sports talk radio and tried to make a nuanced point.KNBR’s “Murph and Markus” show features a weekly segment with a Giants executive. It was Minasian’s turn, to his great misfortune, that his appearance came while smoke was still rising from the mound following Wednesday night’s debacle in which the Giants blew a six-run lead in the ninth inning of a 10-9 loss to the Cincinnati Reds.When you’ve just blown the largest ninth-inning lead in team history, and it’s a franchise that has existed since before Montana gained statehood, you probably shouldn’t expect your fans to be tolerant and open-minded to a layered perspective. Minasian, when asked about rebuilding the bullpen next season, dared to try anyway.“I want to be a little careful to say ‘rebuild the entire bullpen,'” Minasian said. “Something I was looking at the other day, the ninth inning obviously has been a huge issue (but) our bullpen ERA, when you take out the ninth inning, I think the last time I looked a couple days ago, was sixth in baseball.”Minasian went on to make a point that was not without merit: to say the bullpen requires a complete overhaul does a disservice to the pitchers who have thrown well at times or taken positive steps. There’s reason to believe Sam Hentges and Jason Foley, two pitchers who were high-leverage relievers in Cleveland and Detroit, will be better and more consistent next season when they aren’t starting the spring in rehab mode. Keaton Winn and Dylan Smith, obscured by their ninth-inning struggles, have been 20-30 percent better than league average by ERA+.Still, touting the Giants’ bullpen ERA while leaving out the ninth inning? You can imagine that the sole meuniére and tomato aspic were flawlessly executed in the dining room of the Titanic, too. If not for that pesky iceberg, it would’ve been a lovely crossing.There’s nothing like a history-making collapse or the most famous shipwreck in history to numb all your senses. Give the Giants credit for how they responded Thursday night in a series opener against the Arizona Diamondbacks. They rubbed enough sticks together, threw enough strikes, made a couple of smart baseball plays, and yes, got four scoreless innings from the bullpen in a 6-1 victory on the shores of McCovey Cove.Drew Gilbert hit his first career leadoff home run (dare we call it an icebreaker?), Landen Roupp finally cut down on walks in his five innings, and three relievers worked a mostly clean sheet to help the Giants beat a National League West opponent that thoroughly outclassed them, so much that Arizona helped define the direction of San Francisco’s season while winning seven of the first eight meetings.This is what proud coaches like to call “overcoming adversity.” It’s why Giants manager Tony Vitello considered Thursday’s victory perhaps the most rewarding of the season.“You could argue it’s the best win of the year,” Vitello said. “You can throw tomatoes or whatever at (the 55-79) record, or you know, (say) a playoff win would be better. Opening Day would have been better. But if you’re talking about circumstances from (Wednesday) and what we’ve struggled with this year of bouncing back appropriately … the team we played today is an excellent team, and they’ve played more confident than we have when we’ve matched up against those guys.“You wrap it all into one, and it at least stacks up there, and then also it was fun because it had a little bit of everything.”It had Christian Koss, while advancing on a sacrifice bunt, alertly taking an extra 90 feet when he noticed that the Diamondbacks left third base uncovered. Koss scored the tiebreaking run in the fifth inning on Gilbert’s sacrifice fly.It had Carson Seymour calling a mound meeting after issuing a two-out walk to Gabriel Moreno in the eighth, and telling catcher Drew Cavanaugh that he would hold the ball until one second remained on the pitch clock because he had a hunch Moreno would take off. Sure enough, Moreno ran, Cavanaugh held out his arms, and Seymour whirled toward second base to pick him off and end the eighth inning.Cavanaugh received well and hit two long outs to the warning track. Jonah Cox reached three times and stole a base. Rookie right-hander Trent Harris showed poise while retiring all six hitters he faced. And the sellout crowd pulsed with energy when pinch-hitter Jung Hoo Lee started the eighth inning by working a 10-pitch walk that ignited a four-run rally.Going by the attendance, you wouldn’t guess the Giants were buried in the standings or missing most of their marketable stars, including shortstop Willy Adames, whose season is likely over now that he’s getting a platelet-rich plasma injection in his sprained left elbow. Thursday night’s crowd included more than 10,000 special event tickets sold for a Pokémon jersey giveaway — the biggest special-event promotion in franchise history — timed for the arrival of the Pokémon World Championships in San Francisco this week.The giveaway was so popular that fans started lining up at 9 a.m. PT. Concerned about crowd control, the organization took the unprecedented step of distributing the promotion hours before the gates opened.San Francisco’s marketing team is conducting a master class this season. The team has sold at least 30,000 tickets for all but four home games thus far. Still, there’s no stronger draw than having a compelling and winning product on the field.Giants third baseman Shay Whitcomb’s diving stop of a ground ball was among the ninth inning’s highlights. (D. Ross Cameron / Imagn Images)After Wednesday night’s blowup, even a four-run eighth inning seemed like an insurance policy with a lot of shaky fine print. It didn’t calm nerves when Ryan Walker allowed singles to the first two Arizona hitters in the ninth. However, Walker struck out Tim Tawa, third baseman Shay Whitcomb made a diving stop and recorded a forceout, allowing the Giants to avoid colliding with certain doom for the second consecutive night.Let’s be clear: even when you cherry-pick the good stuff, the bullpen has not been a strength for the Giants this season. The relievers rank 26th among 30 teams with minus-4.4 Wins Above Average. For the guys who play catch at 4 p.m. and sit in the bullpen beyond the center field fence, there’s no use dwelling on the bullpen’s past failures. After Wednesday night, they needed to clear every cache.“There was a lot of unspoken words,” Harris said. “Nobody really had to say anything. We knew what happened, and we just came out ready to play today. … There’s so many new people here, myself included. We’re all trying to glue together as much as we can.”So much has come unglued in the ninth inning this season. The Giants have lost nine games that they’ve led in the ninth inning, second-most in the majors, with only the Los Angeles Angels worse. Giants president Buster Posey and his staff are resolved to address late-inning relief this offseason.They also must make meaningful front-end additions to a rotation that, other than Logan Webb, doesn’t inspire much confidence. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Minasian called into KNBR from Japan, where he is taking a scouting trip and meeting with teams. Right-hander Hiromi Itoh, who won last year’s Sawamura Award that recognizes the top pitcher in Nippon Professional Baseball, is expected to be posted by the Nippon Ham Fighters in a few months. It’d be a shock if the Giants weren’t a heavy bidder to sign him.Even if San Francisco puts together a functional rotation next season, it’ll need someone who can protect their winning decisions in the ninth.“It’s on us as a front office,” Minasian said on KNBR. “Obviously it’s something that’s bit us too many times over the course of the season, and we’re gonna have to remedy it at some point for next year and going forward.”It might not be a problem that the Giants solve by throwing money at the top relievers on the market. As Minasian pointed out, the Milwaukee Brewers acquired their current closer, Trevor Megill, on waivers. The Core Four relievers of Jeremy Affeldt, Santiago Casilla, Javier Lopez and Sergio Romo, who were part of all three World Series teams in San Francisco from 2010-14, were not considered high-profile acquisitions.“Good bullpens, dominant bullpens, have multiple pitchers who are capable of closing,” Minasian said. “That door opens in the ninth inning, and you know who it is. There’s different ways to get there.”The Giants cannot get there soon enough. That’s a point that requires no nuance.