DENVER — Gabe Kapler broke one of his golden rules to dish out a dose of optimism before Friday’s game against the Rockies. The Giants’ analytically inclined manager doesn’t like small sample sizes. But his club’s past home stand provided an opportunity to highlight one.

“We were a very productive offense,” he said. “It’s no secret: We were very productive because LaMonte Wade Jr. came up huge for us, Yaz got some big hits for us, Joc had some big at-bats, Wilmer Flores – the core group of veteran players that are here because they’ve always had great at-bats and done damage have helped us win five of six. That same group is going to be depended on going forward.”

Just a few hours later, Kapler was reminded why snapshots in time are just that.

Held without a hit for eight innings, the Giants lost in dramatic and devastating fashion. They were walked off by the Rockies, 3-2, after two runs scored on Elehuris Montero’s single to left field off Camilo Doval in the bottom of the ninth.

Charlie Blackmon, who doubled to lead off the inning, scored the tying run and, with his slide into home plate, dislodged Mike Yastrzemski’s throw from Patrick Bailey, allowing the ball to skip away and for Nolan Jones, whom Doval put on with a walk, to score the winning run.

“It stings, absolutely,” said third baseman J.D. Davis, who gave the Giants their first hit and scored the go-ahead run in the top of the ninth inning. “We did it to ourselves at the same time. We were getting no-hit all the way up until the ninth inning.”

The Giants and Rockies both requested video review after the final play at the plate. Kapler wanted to see if Blackmon’s slide violated the collision rule; his counterpart, Bud Black, wanted to make sure Bailey wasn’t blocking the plate. The call on the field was confirmed: single, RBI, E7. Game over.

“Everything needed to go exactly right, and it didn’t,” Kapler said of the final play. “Blackmon’s very experienced at running the bases here and he got a really good jump. You could see that right away. We knew right away that the only way we were going to have a chance was a perfect thrown and a perfect tag.”

The loss stung even more, given that all three clubs the Giants are battling for the final wild card won. They had moved into a three-way tie when all three clubs lost Thursday while the Giants were rained out, but they fell a game behind Arizona and Cincinnati and a half-game back of Cincinnati.

They’ll have a chance to make it up with a two-for-one effort in Saturday’s day-night double-header, which also means for a quick turnaround.

“That’s great, actually,” Davis said of the 12:10 MT first pitch for Game 1, approximately 14 hours after this one went final. “The (sooner) that we’re back on the field, that’s even better.”

Behind a dominant effort from Logan Webb, the Giants held a 1-0 lead for seven innings despite not getting a hit. Webb finally faltered, allowing the tying run in the eighth, but the Giants answered with their first hit and took the lead in the top of the ninth.

“Every game’s a must-win,” said Webb, who lowered his ERA to 3.31 but has received the least run support of any starter in the majors. “I thought for the most part all the stuff was moving the way I wanted it to and (I was) getting the swings I wanted to. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep that lead in the eighth, which sucks.”

With a double to lead off the ninth inning, Davis saved the Giants from making ignominious history as only the second team to ever be no-hit at the mile-high hitter’s haven the Rockies call home. There still hasn’t been a no-hitter thrown here since Hideo Nomo did it in 1996, the second year of the ballpark’s existence.

Davis’ leadoff double also set him up to score the go-ahead run, sauntering home on a bases-loaded walk to Wilmer Flores. It mirrored the way the Giants got on the board without a hit in the first place, capitalizing on three second-inning walks from Rockies starter Chase Anderson.

Anderson was far from dominant. He issued five walks and was forced out of the game by his pitch count, no-no still intact, after seven innings. It wasn’t a bid for perfection, and the blips along the way put the Giants six outs away from making a different kind of history — nearly becoming the fifth team in the past 50 years to win without getting a hit.

“We played a good game and they beat us,” Kapler said. “We didn’t swing the bats well enough, obviously. It’s tough to get only a couple hits at Coors Field and win a baseball game. … I think it’s worth being self-critical about our performance offensively today, but I think get through this series and assess the series as a whole.”

With no walks and only four hits, Webb allowed fewer base runners than his counterpart. He didn’t allow a run through seven innings, extending his scoreless streak against Colorado to 22 straight innings.

The third hit surrendered by Webb, however, turned into the Rockies’ first run, tying the score in the bottom of the eighth. Ryan McMahon doubled to lead off the inning and scored the tying run two batters later, when Ezequiel Tovar singled into center field. Like Yastrzemski in the ninth, Austin Slater came up firing but his throw home was late.

“Kudos to them for putting pressure on us,” Davis. “We didn’t put enough pressure on (Anderson) at all. We did that one inning (in the second), but it was more just him not locating in the strike zone, not us putting the ball in play or hitting ball that hard.”

Webb became the first pitcher to cross the 200-inning threshold this season, a meaningful milestone for the 26-year-old horse who only fell short last season because he was shut down with the club out of contention.

“It’s something I think I should strive for,” Webb said. “This year, coming in, I just wanted to give the team as many quality innings as I can. They put a lot of trust in me to go out and throw those innings. Credit to those guys and credit to the defense for keeping me in the game.”

Yastrzemski’s throw in the ninth was on the money, and if things went differently would have gone down as only the final defensive highlight on a banner night. After a one-out single in the sixth, Brandon Crawford made a snazzy play to get the lead runner at second, and LaMonte Wade Jr. ended the inning with a diving stop at first.

Kapler said it was “challenging to lose the game after I thought we played maybe our best defensive game of the year all the way through.”

“Our fielders were sensational behind Webby,” he said. “J.D. made some great plays. Craw played his best defensive game of the season. LaMonte made that diving play to his right.”

Anderson breezed through an eight-pitch first inning and retired 16 of 18 hitters from the third through the seventh innings. But he issued five walks, allowing the Giants to build and maintain a 1-0 lead for seven inning despite not getting a hit.

“The four seam, he didn’t really have that much command of it,” Davis said. “The sweeper was OK. But the cutter and the changeup were really working effectively for him tonight. It’s tough when a guy has a really good cutter, even if he’s not locating that four-seam well. He’s got the same arm action on the changeup, and it’s really deceptive.”

The Giants revived their playoff chances by going 5-1 during their recent home stand, and it was fueled by a reawakened offense. After ranking dead last or near the bottom in most offensive categories since the end of June, San Francisco’s hitters were the most productive in the majors over the small six-game sample. Their .316 batting average, .392 on-base percentage, .533 slugging percentage and 155 wRC+ (100 is league average) all led the majors.

There was a real sense of optimism, coming on the heels of Mitch Haniger’s return from the injured list and Conforto’s activation, which came Friday.

Before Friday’s game, Kapler said, “I think we’re back to as full-strength as we’re going to be for the rest of the season.”

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Anderson, a 35-year-old journeyman, entered Friday night with a 7.00 ERA and is on his fifth team since he posted a figure that started with a number below 6. His last start also came against the Giants, who ripped into him for six runs in a 9-1 win just six day ago.

It was a different story Friday night, as Anderson didn’t allow a hit for seven innings and was only forced from the game by his pitch count, which ran up to 101. In 14 previous starts, he had completed six innings only twice and hadn’t thrown a pitch in the seventh inning or later.

Anderson gave way to Justin Lawrence for the eighth inning, the no-hitter still intact.

Kapler was particularly excited about the depth on his bench, and he decided to deploy it for the first time, pinch-hitting Joc Pederson for Luis Matos.

The reliever collapsed on the sixth pitch he threw and was escorted off the mound by Rockies trainers. Pederson swung through it for strike three, anyway, and added his footsteps to a well-treaded path back to the visitor’s dugout.