The San Francisco Giants took the second game of the Bay Bridge Series, taking down the Oakland Athletics 3-0 before a sell-out AT&T crowd. Tim Lincecum threw a complete game shutout as he fired off a season high 133 pitches in holding the A’s to three singles, while striking out five. The fourth straight win moves the Giants to 26-19 and potentially two games up on the Rockies, pending the outcome of Colorado’s game in Milwaukee. The A’s dropped their season high fourth straight loss to fall to 22-24.
The game went as most people probably expected. Lincecum and Brett Anderson exchanged a lot of goose eggs and neither offense could get a whole lot of much going. The Giants scratched across a run early on a Buster Posey ground out. The Giants had a chance to add a run in the sixth against Joey Devine, but Aubrey Huff was thrown out at home trying to score from first on a double to left. The Giants finally managed two huge insurance runs in the eighth inning with big hits off of Brad Ziegler and Jerry Blevins.
At the end of the day the insurance runs really didn’t matter as the A’s could not get thing one going against Lincecum. They managed three singles and never advanced a runner past first base. Lincecum only struck out five as the A’s were fairly patient with him. However, it really didn’t matter because he threw just enough strikes to get the A’s swinging and they simply could not muster anything when they made contact.
The two teams square off in the series finale on Sunday as Gio Gonzalez faces Jonathan Sanchez. The game will be broadcast on CSN California and CSN Bay Area at 1:05pm pacific.