Phillies' bats silent again against Lincecum

CHARLIE MANUEL does not think either Tim Lincecum or Matt Cain has logged enough service time to earn a permanent home in the realm of greatness, but the Giants' young duo has certainly paid more than its fair share of visits when facing the Phillies. Last night, it was Lincecum's turn to continue what he started in last year's National League Championship Series, as the ace righthander pitched six scoreless innings before turning things over to his bullpen in a 4-1 Giants win.

"They're good pitchers - you say they are great pitchers? To me, I don't know how great they are," Manuel said. "As they move on into their career, the longevity part, I think that's when the greatness might come by. This is a consistent game, and it goes with pitching and hitting, too. When you say somebody is great, I look up there and tonight I saw 90 [mph] fastball, 92 at the best, I saw a good changeup, I saw a breaking ball, and I saw a cutter, and every now and then a good changeup with a breaking ball, good pitching, but at the same time we can beat that. I've seen us beat that."

They haven't beaten it in a while, at least not with Lincecum on the mound. Yesterday marked the fifth straight regular-season start in which the 2008 and 2009 NL Cy Young Award winner pitched at least six innings while holding the Phillies to two or fewer runs with six or more strikeouts. In his last six regular-season starts, he has held them to six earned runs, 27 hits, 10 walks and 49 strikeouts in 43 1/3 innings. In both of his starts against the Phillies in last year's NLCS, he pitched seven innings and allowed three runs, including a 4-3 victory in Game 1 and a 4-2 loss in Game 5. He also recorded one out in relief in the Giants' 3-2, series-clinching win in Game 6.

Last night, he was still dealing with the effects of a case of what is believed to be food poisoning, which delayed his start by 2 days. He walked an uncharacteristic four batters, but allowed just three hits. One of those hits was a double by Jimmy Rollins to lead off the game. Manuel then elected to use Michael Martinez to sacrifice bunt the runner to third, but with one out Chase Utley popped out to shortstop; Ryan Howard followed with a strikeout. In the third, Lincecum struck Utley out with runners at the corners to end the frame.

Although Utley struck out again with runners on first and second in the fifth, he did drive in the Phillies' only run, doubling off lefty Jeremy Affeldt in the seventh to score Carlos Ruiz.

But the Phillies still trailed, 4-1, after a seventh inning in which the Giants scored two runs off righthander Kyle Kendrick, thanks in part to a throwing error on Martinez. They got their other two runs on a home run by Pablo Sandoval in the second and an RBI single by Nate Schierholtz in the fourth.

The Phillies lost their first series since a mid-June road trip to Seattle, and they lost their first back-to-back games since June 4.

Including last year's NLCS, they are 9-13 against the Giants since the start of the 2009 season.

"I think we can get 'em, if you want to know the truth," Manuel said. "I know that we can get them. It's just a matter of us putting things together and for us to play the right way, and that's pitch, hit and play good defense. Yeah, I think we can get them. Do they play us good? Yeah, they've been playing us tough. They've got a good team. They've got good pitching. It's just a matter of us outplaying them."