The San Francisco Giants came to Milwaukee with a case of the blues. They’d been swept at home, lost arguably their best player along with their starting shortstop and magic bullet to injuries, and have been slumping at the plate for the majority of the season. But with an appearance of the Freak and one spectacular crack of the bat from a rookie call-up, the Giants ended their losing streak by a score of 5-4 at Miller Park.
Lincecum (W 5-4) didn’t have the same quality of stuff as in his last few starts, but had enough to keep the Brewers close. Timmy went for seven innings, allowing six hits, three earned runs, no walks and four strikeouts. His lone mistake was a Rickie Weeks two run jack in the third, while Weeks recorded another RBI on a fielder’s choice in the fifth.
The Giants got on the board in the sixth with an RBI single from Freddy Sanchez, who’s 2-4 night now leaves him only four hits shy on career number 1000. And just when the Giants needed a little energy injected into their squad they got it from one of the least likely members of the team. Single A call up Brandon Crawford made quite the impression in his first major league game as he crushed a seventh inning grand slam for his first major league hit, vaulting the Giants ahead 5-3. Crawford finished the game 1-3 with a walk.
But the Brewers battled back, loading the bases in the bottom of the eighth. Jonathan Lucroy hit an RBI single to left, but Cody Ross gunned out Prince Fielder at the plate as his attempted steamroll of Eli Whiteside wasn’t to be; preserving the Giants lead 5-4. Brian Wilson came in for the ninth, solidifying his 14th save of the year.
With the win the Giants move to 28-22 this season. Full box score can be found here.
The Giants will have the second match of the series Saturday afternoon with Jonathan Sanchez (3-3 3.47 ERA) on the bump to take on Randy Wolf (4-4 3.70 ERA) for the Brewers in a battle of the lefties. First pitch is set for 1:10 PT with coverage on CSN Bay Area and KNBR 680 AM.