On a beautiful afternoon at AT&T Park the San Francisco Giants were looking for a sweep of the rival Los Angeles Dodgers, but unfortunately Clayton Kershaw was having none of it. Tim Lincecum pitched very well for the Black and Orange, but not as well as Kershaw as he fanned 12 Giants, leading to the eventual 1-0 win over the defending World Champs.
Lincecum (L 8-8) took a very hard loss this afternoon after throwing seven full innings of one run ball, keeping the dodgers to only five hits along with four walks and seven strikeouts; now only 12 K's shy of tying Jason Schmidt for third all time on the San Francisco Giants strikeout list. The lone mistake Timmy made was to Dionner Navarro, blasting his third home run of the season in the seventh inning and putting the boys in blue up for good.
As for Kershaw (W 11-4), he was absolutely lights out in his eight innings of work, allowing only three hits with one walk and a very impressive 12 punch outs. There are few that can out pitch Tim Lincecum in his own ballpark, especially when Timmy throws a game like this. But Kershaw is a legitimate Cy Young candidate this season in the NL, and is one of the lone bright spots on the Dodgers pitching staff this year.
The Giants offense obviously remained stagnent today, although they had a few opportunities to score after leaving four runners in scoring position as well as not taking advantage of three Dodgers errors on the day. Chris Stewart and Emmanuel Burriss were the lone Giants to get hits, although Stewart went 2-3.
With the loss the Giants move to 57-42 on the year. Full box score can be found here.