SAN FRANCISCO -- Welcome to the human race, kid.

Just when we were beginning to wonder whether any pitcher had ever been inducted into the Hall of Fame before winning a regular season game, Anaheim reliever Francisco Rodriguez turned mortal on us and actually (gasp!) lost a game. With Game 4 tied 3-3 in the eighth inning, the rookie allowed a run-scoring single to David Bell that decided the game and placed the first pimple on Rodriguez's postseason record.

The kid loses a game. What's next? Angelina Jolie starts returning my phone calls?

	Francisco Rodriguez, 20, suffered his first major league loss Wednesday.

True, the run was unearned but it saddled him with a loss nonetheless, the first for Rodriguez at the major league level. The last time Rodriguez lost was at the Triple-A level and while he could remember the circumstances -- "I gave up six runs in the ninth'' -- he wasn't exactly sure when it was or who it was against. "I don't remember. It was El Paso, maybe, but I'm not sure. Maybe it was Tucson.''

Well, a lot has happened to Rodriguez since then. The Angels called him up in mid-September, threw him into a pennant race, added him to the postseason roster through a loophole in the rules and then watched him become the second coming of Mariano Rivera.

Prior to Wednesday, Rodriguez had pitched 18 2/3 innings at the major league level, allowing only seven hits and two runs while striking out 32 batters. He won his first game at Yankee Stadium, then won four more games in the next two weeks, giving him more postseason wins than Sandy Koufax. No pitcher had come out of nowhere and been so dominant since Tatum O'Neal in "The Bad News Bears.''

He had been so dominating that he had the same sort of effect on opponents as Rivera, creating pressure that they better get a lead before he comes into the game because they sure as heck won't get much of a chance after he's on the mound.

Then came Game 4 when the Giants scored the game-winner off Rodriguez on two singles and a passed ball. Afterward, Rodriguez sat in the Angels dugout and stared at the victorious Giants strutting off the field.

Asked whether Game 4 might have punctured the kid's aura of invincibility, San Francisco reliever Tim Worrell said, "It can. I don't know if it will.''

Rodriguez seemed to handle the loss fairly well, displaying only small amounts of surprise and mild irritation when wave after wave of reporter kept asking him what went wrong, what went wrong, what went wrong.

"I felt good. I just made a couple mistakes and they took advantage of it,'' he said. "You're not going to win every day. It's going to be up and down. You're going to have your good days, bad days and lucky days.

	“	He's fine. He'll understand that you don't always get the results you want. That's baseball. He's been tremendous for us and he'll be fine after this. ”
		— Mike Scioscia, Angels manager, on Francisco Rodriguez

"I'll just forget this. It's over and in the past. I'll come back strong tomorrow and go on.''

It's not as if Rodriguez pitched poorly. After retiring all nine batters he faced to win Game 2, Rodriguez took over in the seventh inning Wednesday and retired the side in order again. He even retired Barry Bonds on a grounder to first, the only time that manager Mike Scioscia let his pitcher throw to Bonds the entire game. That's an indication of how confident the Angels are in Rodriguez.

Rodriguez might not have given up the run the next inning either had it not been for catcher Bengie Molina's passed ball. After J.T. Snow singled to open the inning, Rodriguez threw a fastball to Reggie Sanders, who squared around to bunt. The pitch was just out of the strike zone, though, and Sanders let it go by. The pitch then darted off Molina's glove for a passed ball that moved Snow into scoring position.

"It was my fault,'' Molina said. "I told him I was sorry about it. I told him I'll pick him up the next game or two.''

"No, no, no,'' Rodriguez said when told that Molina took the blame. "That's just baseball. At the last minute, it cut away from him. It's hard to catch a ball like that.''

Rodriguez wound up retiring Sanders on a foul popup, but Bell lined a single up the middle to drive in Snow and give the Giants the lead. It marked the first time Rodriguez had allowed a run-scoring hit since Game 2 of the Division Series against New York.

Rodriguez threw mostly sliders Wednesday, but said that he hadn't become predictable. The problem, he said, wasn't pitch selection, it was location, and the two singles were both on pitches he left up in the strike zone. "If I throw the slider down and away, they won't hit it like that.''

If there has been one weakness for Rodriguez, it's been pitching from the stretch. In Game 5 of the ALCS, Rodriguez took over with the bases loaded and allowed all three runners to score. He walked in the first run, threw a wild pitch (that could have been a passed ball) to score another and allowed the third run on a sacrifice fly.

Scioscia said he isn't concerned. "He's shown he can execute his pitches from the stretch or from a windup. Most pitchers are a little more comfortable in the windup than the stretch.''

The Giants not only got the victory, they gained something else important. They also put a dent into Rodriguez and perhaps put the first seed of doubt into his mind, reminding him that he is just as vulnerable as everyone else.

"That's the way it works. Your confidence can build like that,'' Worrell said. "You keep getting guys outs and you keep getting that confidence. We'll see the rest of the series whether we got to him or not.''

Indeed we will. Winning is easy. It's how you handle losing that's important.

"He's fine,'' Scioscia said. "He'll understand that you don't always get the results you want. That's baseball. He's been tremendous for us and he'll be fine after this.''

Jim Caple is a senior writer for ESPN.com.