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DENVER — The surging San Francisco Giants open a three-game series Monday at Coors Field Youth Matthew Tkachuk Jersey , where they have fared poorly. But ace left-hander Madison Bumgarner, who is in vintage form, will start against the Colorado Rockies in a sequel of sorts.

Bumgarner (1-2, 2.51) and Rockies left-hander Kyle Freeland (7-6, 3.29), who has been the Rockies’ best starter, opposed each other Wednesday at AT&T Park. Both starters pitched seven scoreless innings before the Giants won 1-0 on Brandon Crawford’s walk-off homer.

The Giants have lost 12 of their past 14 games at Coors Field. But they began their current road trip by sweeping three games at Arizona — their first sweep at Chase Field since September 2016 — giving the Giants (45-40) 10 wins in their past 12 games.

The Giants are 19-26 on the road, which is the second-worst road record in the National League. But they have won eight of their past 14 road games.

The Giants are tied for second in the NL West with the Los Angeles Dodgers, 2 1/2 games behind the Diamondbacks. That is the closest the Giants have been to first place since June 10, when they were also 2 1/2 games behind.

The Giants got strong starts from Andrew Suarez and Dereck Rodriguez while beating the Diamondbacks 2-1 and 7-0 and overcame a poor start by Derek Holland to win the series finale, 9-6.

“These are big games for us, for sure,” Giants catcher Buster Posey said after Saturday’s win. “I think we all collectively know we’ve got to play better on the road. … We go to Denver, where we haven’t played well the past couple of years. It’s a matter of keeping our focus and executing.”

Bumgarner’s execution has been uncommonly good lately.

He has a string of 16 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to June 16 against the Dodgers at Los Angeles. He then worked eight scoreless innings June 21 against San Diego and limited the Rockies to two hits Wednesday in seven innings.

That gave Bumgarner back-to-back scoreless outings of at least seven innings for the first time in his career. In 27 starts in his career, Bumgarner is 12-7 with a 2.92 ERA against the Rockies.

At Coors Field, he is 5-5 with an ERA of 4.00 in 13 starts. He hasn’t pitched in Colorado since 2016.

This is the second season in the majors for Freeland, who is 4-2 with an ERA of 2.61 in seven starts against the Giants. He’s 2-0 in three starts against them this year.

Freeland has allowed three or fewer runs in 11 starts and four runs in the other. In six starts at Coors Field this year, Freeland is 4-2, 2.95.

Freeland held the Giants to four singles Wednesday Michael Frolik Jersey , and registered 12 ground-ball outs.

Bumgarner gave up a single and a double, allowed one runner to reach third base and struck out eight (six swinging). Freeland threw 104 pitches, 67 for strikes. Bumgarner finished with 101 pitches, 66 strikes.

“It was a great matchup between two lefties, one just starting his career and getting his feet on the ground, and Bumgarner obviously we know what he’s done in his career,” Rockies manager Bud Black said. “It was impressive from Kyle in terms of the changeup usage, keeping the ball down, enough inside to keep the righties honest, changing speeds, sinking the ball.”

The Rockies (41-43) dropped two of three at San Francisco but then won two of three at Los Angeles, ending a 3-3 road trip with a 6-4 loss Sunday that kept them six games behind Arizona.

The Rockies are 26-21 on the road, but their 15-22 home record is the second-worst in the NL.

Since divisional play began in 1969, only three times has a division had two teams with at least 100 wins.

That could happen again this year in the AL East – and maybe the AL West as well.

The Yankees, Red Sox, Astros and Mariners are all on pace to win over 100 games, and they’ve created tight races atop those two divisions. With two wild cards in each league, those four teams have some breathing room in the race for the postseason, but there should be plenty of incentive to win the division title and avoid the one-game Jamaal Williams Jersey , winner-take-all scenario that the wild cards have to deal with.

The Yankees and Red Sox just played a three-game series in New York. The games weren’t all that suspenseful – they ended 8-1, 11-0 and 11-1, with the Yankees winning two of three.

The first time two teams from one division won at least 100 games was in 1980, when the Yankees (103-59) outlasted the Orioles (100-62) atop the AL East. A seven-game winning streak in mid-September helped New York hold on.

In 1993, the last year before the wild card, the Braves (104-58) and Giants (103-59) dueled all the way to the final day before San Francisco was done in by a 12-1 loss to the rival Dodgers. Atlanta was 10 games out on the morning of July 23 but went 49-16 the rest of the way.

The only time in the six-division era that a 100-win team failed to finish first was when Oakland went 102-60 in 2001 and still ended up 14 games behind a 116-win Seattle team.

None of the teams involved in those three previous examples made it to the World Series, so consider that a word of caution to this year’s American League behemoths.

Some other developments around the majors:

SHORTER WAITS

If the Mariners make the postseason this year, it will be their first appearance since that remarkable 2001 season. Baseball’s next-longest drought belongs to the Marlins, who haven’t made it since winning the World Series as a wild card in 2003.

The addition of extra wild cards has made it easier for teams to avoid long stretches without a postseason berth. The Padres haven’t made it since 2006 and the White Sox haven’t been in since 2008. Aside from those two teams, the Marlins and the Mariners, every major league franchise has made the postseason at least once since 2011.

HIGHLIGHT

The outfield wall in Toronto is high enough that it doesn’t lend itself to home run-robbing catches. Blue Jays center fielder Kevin Pillar figured out a solution, however, planting a foot on the wall and using it to vault himself up while making a catch on a drive by Detroit’s Nicholas Castellanos. Even Castellanos applauded that catch Sunday.

LINES OF THE WEEK

Two from the Red Sox-Yankees series: Chris Sale allowed one hit in seven innings, striking out 11 in Boston’s 11-0 win Saturday night. The following evening, it was New York delivering an 11-1 blowout. Aaron Hicks hit three home runs for the Yankees in that game.

Sale has a 1.73 career ERA against the Yankees, best among pitchers with at least 10 starts against them since 1920. But Sunday’s six-homer barrage brought New York’s season total to 137, a franchise record for before the All-Star break.

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