Giants hold on for much-needed win ahead of key D-backs series

DENVER — Prior to Sunday’s series finale against the Rockies at Coors Field, Giants manager Gabe Kapler spoke at length about the state of his club with 13 games left in the regular season.

San Francisco was coming off three consecutive losses to the last-place Rockies, including a doubleheader sweep on Saturday that left the club 2 1/2 games out of the third National League Wild Card position.

“It does take active work to shift the conversation from complaining and commiserating to, ‘OK, enough of that,’” Kapler said. “‘Now we’re gonna go work on something we can actually control.’”

The conversation certainly shifted Sunday, from one filled with words like “silent,” “dormant” and “futile” to describe the lineup, to one involving descriptors such as “awakened,” “alive” and “revitalized” after the Giants’ 11-10 win over Colorado.

With a huge two-game series against the D-backs in Arizona beginning Tuesday, followed by a trip to Los Angeles to face the Dodgers before a six-game homestand against the Padres and Dodgers to close out the regular season, salvaging the series finale in Denver was a must.

And the Giants needed to do more than just squeak by with a 2-1 victory or some such result. They needed an offensive revival. And they got it.

For the first five innings Sunday, the status quo reigned, with San Francisco managing only a run on two hits — J.D. Davis singled in the fifth and Mitch Haniger drove him in with the first of two doubles in the contest.

But with the Giants clinging to a 1-0 lead, the bats were jolted to life in an eight-run sixth highlighted by a two-run double from Mitch Haniger and a three-run homer by Brandon Crawford, who had been hitless in the series with four walks to that point.

The three-run shot gave Crawford 80 career RBIs at Coors Field, second-most by a visiting player (Adrián González had 88).