Rockies rookie left-handed reliever Ben Bowden exited stage left after walking two and giving up Brandon Crawford’s three-run, go-ahead home run in the sixth inning of a 4-3 loss to the Giants on Saturday. He entered Oracle Park on Sunday to planned meetings with manager Bud Black and pitching coach Steve Foster, in hopes his next opportunity will go better.

A second-round Draft pick in 2016, Bowden, 26, has long been considered a key figure in the Rockies’ bullpen future. But with development slowed by injuries and the lack of a Minor League season in 2020, development -- sometimes painful -- will occur in games.

“There’s going to be some bump in the road, for sure -- yesterday was a big one,” manager Bud Black said Sunday. “He took that hard. He cares a great deal about his team. He’s an original drafted player. He’s invested in the organization. He’ll learn from this.”

The first two games of the Giants series were lost because a Rockies bullpen that lacks an established lefty couldn’t handle Crawford, who had a key two-run double off righty Tyler Kinley on Friday.

It’s clear the Rockies have an eye toward the future. Kinley’s first Major League season was last year, when he handled lefties much better than he has so far this year. Bowden is four games into his career.

Sunday’s lesson plan centered on Bowden not going away from his best pitches -- like when he went from 0-2 to a walk to Alex Dickerson to open the inning. Bowden’s best pitch was a full-count changeup that Evan Longoria popped up for Bowden’s only out. The full-count fastball Crawford smashed was intended to be outside, but missed badly inside.

“Only he knows what he was feeling, whether he was trying to overthrow the ball, whether he got caught up in the moment,” Black said. “Those things are learning experiences for Ben.”

If at first you don't succeed ...

In Saturday’s one-run game, Giants catcher Buster Posey made perfect throws when only perfection was good enough to erase Garrett Hampson and Raimel Tapia on steal attempts. But later in the game, Trevor Story put himself in scoring position on a successful steal.

The lesson is if running is part of a team’s game, it has to keep running. Black said that was the message to Hampson and Tapia.

“We encourage our basestealers to always be aggressive, anyway,” Black said. “So when they both came back into the dugout they were encouraged to keep going, by teammates, coaches, myself. That’s how we’re going to have to play.”

Injury report

Black said MRI results on utility player Chris Owings (sprained left wrist) revealed no further structural damage. Owings, placed on the 10-day injured list Saturday, will have another MRI when the team returns to Denver.

Also, at his insistence, starting pitcher Kyle Freeland, who sustained a left shoulder strain in Spring Training, is throwing on flat ground. In fact, at his insistence, he flew from Scottsdale, Ariz., where he has been rehabbing, to join the Rockies and do his throwing in front of the staff. He posted on Instagram about the private flight on short notice and the throwing session.

Inspiration

Infielder Alan Trejo, called up Saturday in Owings’ stead, grew up playing baseball and basketball (his father, Ray, coached varsity hoops at Los Angeles’ Roosevelt High for 13 years).

Trejo chose baseball and went to San Diego State, but didn’t watch much baseball until 2016. He was in a pizza place when Rockies shortstop Trevor Story homered twice off the D-backs’ Zack Greinke in his Major League debut. So when Trejo, 24, a 16th-round pick in 2017, began coming to Major League camp in ‘19, he picked Story as a role model.

“It was always about trying to work harder than him,” Trejo said. “If I tried to raise the bar a little bit, push him as much as I push myself, both of us would get better.”