Manager Gabe Kapler never officially anointed Jake McGee as the Giants’ closer, but over the first two weeks of the regular season, the 34-year-old veteran looked and acted the part.

McGee entered Saturday with an MLB-high six saves and had allowed only one hit and no runs over 7 1/3 innings in his first eight appearances. But his impeccable start came to an end after the Giants’ bullpen surrendered two late-inning leads en route to a stinging 7-6 walk-off loss to the Marlins in 10 innings on Saturday night at loanDepot park.

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McGee was charged with his first blown save of the year after giving up two runs in the ninth, and left-hander Jarlín García took the loss after yielding a game-winning, two-run double by Jorge Alfaro in the bottom of the 10th inning.

The Giants have lost back-to-back games for the first time this year and ended their streak of three consecutive series victories

“We didn’t think Jake was going to convert every save opportunity this season,” Kapler said. “Obviously, we’re disappointed in the outcome of the game, but nothing has changed from a standpoint of us knowing that Jake is the right guy for these opportunities.”

Brandon Belt and Austin Slater homered to fuel a five-run rally that gave the Giants a 5-3 lead in the seventh inning. In the ninth, however, McGee gave up three consecutive singles to start the inning, which brought the Marlins within one, at 5-4. McGee then retired Jon Berti and Corey Dickerson on popups before surrendering a game-tying RBI single by Starling Marte.

“Over the inning, I made a few good pitches up the zone, and I got a few outs, but when I got ahead, I just wasn’t really locating as well as I have in the past,” McGee said. “I was pulling too many pitches down in the zone, giving them more of a chance.”

The Giants have leaned heavily on McGee, who has appeared in nine of the first 14 games this year, but Kapler said he didn’t think McGee’s workload factored into his uncharacteristic performance on Saturday night.

“Even at the end, when he was up north of 30 pitches, there was still life on his fastball,” Kapler said. “The location was just a little bit off.”

The Giants regained a one-run lead on Belt’s two-out RBI double in the top of the 10th, but García couldn’t hold it in the bottom half of the inning. García, who spent the first three years of his career with the Marlins before being claimed off waivers by the Giants ahead of the 2020 campaign, issued a one-out walk to the speedy Jazz Chisholm Jr., who later came around to score the game-winning run on Alfaro’s double.  

“He is especially reliant on his command,” Kapler said of García. “One of the things that we like about Jarlín is that he can throw three pitches for strikes. He gets ahead in counts. You saw that there were some wilder misses there. That’s just something that he’s got to improve on.

“When he’s in and around the zone, he’s an effective pitcher. We saw that last year.”

It’s unclear whether McGee will be available to pitch Sunday in the series finale after throwing 35 pitches, but he said he doesn’t expect the disappointment from Saturday to linger into his next outing. 

“It’s still fairly easy to turn the page,” McGee said. “It’s always amnesia. If you can figure out and pinpoint what went wrong and why it went wrong, you’ll have something to work on. I just need to execute getting the ball up more, especially in leverage counts and against guys who you know are going to swing really early. You just kind of learn from it.”