by David White, Chronicle Staff Writer , The San Francisco Chronicle

The Raiders still lost 24-16 at San Diego on Sunday, making them a baked dozen for the franchise-record 13th straight time in this 100-game-old series.

"It gets to a point where moral victories aren't enough," said running back Justin Fargas. "You can't settle for anything less than winning. Almost isn't enough anymore."

That said, "almost" beats the recent string of not-close losses. Nine of the team's 14 losses under head coach Tom Cable have been by 19 or more points - including four since a 24-20 loss to these same Chargers in the season opener.

But like the players kept saying, this isn't a church league, so moral doesn't cut it. All the Raiders know is they are 2-6 halfway through the season for a record fourth straight year.

That ought to shelve any playoff talk for a while in these parts for a third-place team that is 4 1/2 games out in the AFC West with eight to play.

"Moral victory, no," Cable said. "Winning is winning in this league. Very disappointed."

The Raiders should be. For once, they did so many of the chores needed to give them a fighting chance.

Run the ball? The Raiders did it. Not for a ton of yards 99 on 27 carries, Cable said, but enough to sustain drives and eat the clock.

Backup running back Justin Fargas took over early as the primary back, and ran 18 times for 59 yards. He even scored on a 3-yard run, just the eighth touchdown of his seven-year career.

"That was our plan coming in," Fargas said. "Run the ball, get physical with them, possess the Football."

Stop the run? They even did that for once. The Chargers gained 100 yards on 30 carries, a far cry from the 316 rushing yards Oakland gave up last week to the Jets.

Missed tackles were down. Big gains were few.

The previously struggling special-teams unit provided short fields for two field goals: one on Jonathan Holland's 60-yard kickoff return, another on Gary Russell's fumbled punt recovery.

"You're still in the game," Raiders cornerback Nnamdi Asomugha said. "This is more like the games that you expect from teams. Not the 38-0 or those types of games. From a competitive standpoint, it was still encouraging that we were in it until the end."

And in the end, it didn't matter because the Raiders couldn't do what mattered most. They still don't know how to score touchdowns.

For the sixth straight game, and for the 13th time in 20 games, they had no more than one touchdown. They settled for three field goals, making it known that when down by eight, they were three scores away from leading the game.

The only time they reached the end zone, in the second quarter, the offense was set up in the red zone by Chris Johnson's interception return to the Chargers' 42 and a penalty on the return that brought it to the 27-yard line. Even then, it took seven plays to score their fourth red-zone touchdown of the season.

Running the ball only gets them so far. At some point, they have to pass the ball, and they still cannot do that with any semblance of respectability.

Yes, quarterback JaMarcus Russell looked better one week after his first NFL benching. He was intercepted on the opening drive, overthrowing into double coverage, two plays before the Chargers took a 7-0 lead.

It was all safe-mode from there. Russell finished 14 of 22 for 109 yards, with only the one turnover.

"The best part was how he responded to it," Cable said. "I thought it was exceptional, as well as he's responded to any type of adversity."

It just wasn't enough. The Raiders' final drive ended with a failed hook-and-ladder on 4th-and-20. They trudged into the locker room knowing "not that bad" was not good enough.

"When it all boils down, you had a chance at the end to try to win," Russell said. "We kept pushing and just came up on the short end."

Run defense goes up, pass defense comes down. B11

ESPN uncovers more allegations against Cable. B11

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