SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- It took rain to slow down the surging San Francisco Giants. The bad weather was more of a relief to the struggling Colorado Rockies, who left town without scoring a run.

Steady rains forced postponement of Sunday's game between the Rockies and Giants, who have won a season-high six straight, including shutouts of Colorado in the first two games of the series.

"This is not a bad thing, as bad as our offense has been working," Rockies first baseman Todd Helton said. "It's probably a good thing for us. It's a break that we probably needed. It'll give us a day off to regroup and we'll go to Houston and hopefully win some games there."

The Giants, on the other hand, were sorry to see the rains come. They wanted one more crack at the Rockies.

"No one likes to play in the rain but as a team, yeah, you want to keep your roll going," San Francisco catcher Doug Mirabelli said. "And I say anytime you can get a team where you have them on the ropes, you keep hammering them until they leave town. Maybe we're playing them now when they're not playing their best ball and then you reschedule and maybe we catch them when they're playing really good ball."

The makeup date will be decided later. The Rockies make one more trip to San Francisco, playing a three-game series July 4-6.

Joe Nathan combined with two relievers to limit Colorado to three hits in San Francisco's 5-0 win Friday night and Shawn Estes scattered nine hits in beating the Rockies 6-0 on Saturday. San Francisco pitchers have strung together 21 straight scoreless innings dating to Mike Piazza's two-run homer off Kirk Rueter in the sixth inning of Thursday's 7-2 win over the Mets.

"Our pitchers have been getting ahead of a lot of hitters and in a lot of situations when they've needed a pitch they've made it," Mirabelli said. "I think it's a situation where each starting guy is going out there and he knows what the guy before him did and he wants to duplicate that or do better. They say hitting is contagious but I also think pitching is contagious."

Helton said the Rockies just have to do a better job at the plate.

"I think it's been more us as hitters. We've been swinging the bats very poorly," Helton said. "I think it was more us than them."

The rainout was just the 29th in San Francisco since the Giants moved west in 1958, but the second since the team began playing in Pacific Bell Park this season. The first rainout was April 16 against Arizona. That game will be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader on Sept. 23.

Before this year, the Giants had not been rained out more than once in a season since 1967, when three games were called due to inclement weather.

"You don't want rain now when you're going good," said San Francisco manager Dusty Baker, whose club has won 12 of the past 14 after a major-league worst 4-11 start. "We didn't mind it against Arizona because we were going bad. But there's really not much you can do about the weather. You have to accept it, even if you don't like it."

The Giants decided to keep their rotation in order, pushing each of their starters one day back. So Livan Hernandez (1-4), whose scheduled start was washed away, will now face Pat Hentgen (3-3) Monday night when the Giants open a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

"We're just going to keep everybody in place. We're not going to mess with anybody," Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti said.

Colorado manager Buddy Bell suggested the Rockies will juggle their rotation in the coming days, though No. 1 starter Pedro Astacio (3-2) will stay on his scheduled turn and pitch Monday against Chris Holt in Houston.

"Any time you can get your No. 1 guy out there, you want to take advantage of it," Bell said. "We feel pretty good when he's out there and we want to get him as many starts as possible."

Bell said nothing was decided beyond Astacio's scheduled start this week. Among the options under consideration are removing one pitcher from the rotation and placing him in the bullpen for a while. Another would have Sunday's sceduled starter, Scott Karl, pitch Tuesday in Houston, followed by Kevin Jarvis on Wednesday.

"We're going to try to figure out what's best not just for the short-term but for the long-term as well," Bell said.