Cueto, Giants host Rockies

SAN FRANCISCO -- While the Colorado Rockies counted the reasons for their 3-1 win over the San Francisco Giants on Thursday night, the losers were left counting their available players for the Friday rematch.

Coming off what manager Bud Black called a great team win, the Rockies will go for two in a row against the Giants and San Francisco's best pitcher so far in 2017, Johnny Cueto.

The Rockies got excellent long relief from Chris Rusin, a two-run homer from Trevor Story and a game-saving defensive play from second baseman DJ LeMahieu to beat Giants ace Madison Bumgarner in the series opener.

Black called Rusin, who was called upon to replace injured Jon Gray in the fourth inning, the hero of the night. But then Black got to crediting his supporting cast, and he basically ran through half his roster as having contributed to the hard-fought victory.

"I've been coming here a long time," the manager said with a sigh of relief. "There are many games like this one."

Black noted it will take another similar team effort to be successful on Friday because the Giants' rotation doesn't stop at Bumgarner.

In fact, the Rockies never beat Cueto last season, going 0-3 against him. That made the veteran 7-2 against the Rockies in his career with a 2.22 ERA in 12 career starts.

The Rockies will counter with left-hander Tyler Anderson, who has never beaten the Giants in two career head-to-heads.

The Giants once again will go without star catcher Buster Posey, who remains on the seven-day concussion disabled list.

Bochy announced after the Thursday game that shortstop Brandon Crawford, who was available only as a pinch hitter in the series opener, also would be out of the lineup Friday. Crawford had a hectic day of travel Thursday to be with his wife's family after the death of his sister-in-law.

Complicating matters, Bochy saw his club use every ounce of energy it had in a late comeback Thursday, only to fail to take advantage of a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the ninth inning.

The Giants' last four losses have all been by two runs or fewer.

"We owe ourselves two or three comebacks because we've lost some tough ones," Bochy said. "You'd like to think tonight it was going to happen, but we came up short. It's hard to win a ballgame when you score just one run."

Playing tight games against the Giants in San Francisco is nothing new to the Rockies. In losing a highly competitive season series 10-9 last year, Colorado saw five of its 10 games at AT&T Park come down to the last pitch. The Giants won three of them.

If the Friday game is the same, both teams are confident they have an effective game-ender in the bullpen.

The Rockies' Greg Holland made it 6-for-6 in saves by retaining the two-run lead in a dramatic ninth inning Thursday night.

The Giants' Mark Melancon, meanwhile, is a perfect 2-for-2 since blowing a ninth-inning lead on Opening Day in Arizona.