Ger­man Mar­quez pitched a gem and the Rock­ies’ bats came alive in a 7–2 vic­to­ry Mon­day night at the Giants. Now, two unfa­mil­iar words for Col­orado — win­ning streak.

The Rock­ies (24–29) have won back-to-back games for the first time in three weeks as their play­off hopes, while slim, remain math­e­mat­i­cal­ly pos­si­ble. Col­orado — trail­ing the Brew­ers, Giants, Mets and Reds for the final Nation­al League wild-card slot — plays San Fran­cis­co three more times before clos­ing the reg­u­lar sea­son with four games at the Diamondbacks.

On Sun­day, Mar­quez earned his eighth qual­i­ty start of the year, the bullpen held up, and Col­orado fea­tured sev­en play­ers with at least one hit. The Rock­ies did it with­out third base­man Nolan Are­na­do after he was shut down for the sea­son with a nag­ging shoul­der injury ear­li­er the same day.

“There was a good ener­gy tonight,” man­ag­er Bud Black said. “A lot of con­tri­bu­tions from a lot of players.”

The Rock­ies were lift­ed by a flur­ry of first-inning offense behind four sin­gles (Kevin Pil­lar, Char­lie Black­mon, Josh Fuentes and Ryan McMa­hon) against Giants right-han­der John­ny Cue­to. Fuentes and McMa­hon each drove in a run to lead 2–0 and Col­orado kept its foot on the gas.

The Rock­ies padded their advan­tage in the third with a Pil­lar solo homer, and again in the fourth when a Cue­to balk scored Sam Hilliard. In the fifth inning, reserve catch­er Elias Diaz blast­ed a deep sin­gle that scored Trevor Sto­ry and Fuentes.

Col­orado went up 6–0 and San Fran­cis­co turned to Wandy Per­al­ta in the bullpen. The Rock­ies’ bats con­tin­ued to feast. Gar­rett Hamp­son sin­gled to score McMa­hon and their lead jumped to sev­en runs.

“Offen­sive­ly, it was nice to get things going from the top to bot­tom of the line­up,” Pil­lar said. “Every­one just seemed real­ly engaged and real­ly ener­gized. It was just a dif­fer­ent feeling.”

Mar­quez, Colorado’s open­ing day starter, final­ly cracked in the fifth when he gave up an RBI sin­gle to Giants infield­er Dono­van Solano. Col­orado stuck with Mar­quez in the sixth and he retired three con­sec­u­tive bat­ters to close the side. Mar­quez (3–6) fin­ished his night with 100 pitch­es (69 strikes) and 12 forced ground balls in his first vic­to­ry since ear­ly August.

Rock­ies reliev­er Car­los Estevez entered in the sev­enth inning, and after record­ing two outs, he gave up a solo home run to Alex Dick­er­son. The Rock­ies opt­ed for Yen­cy Almonte who retired the side. Mychal Givens pitched a score­less eighth inning. Tyler Kin­ley closed the game for Col­orado in the ninth.

The Rock­ies face the Giants again on Tues­day night for the sec­ond meet­ing of their cur­rent four-game series.

“Every game mat­ters,” Mar­quez. “We have to keep work­ing and keep win­ning games to make the play­offs — and I think we’re going to make it.”