Madison Bumgarner has been San Francisco's best pitcher this season and the left-hander will lead the Giants into Wednesday's third portion of a four-game series versus the Milwaukee Brewers at AT&T Park.
Bumgarner is 7-2 with a 1.83 earned run average in his last 10 starts and the defending World Series champions are 7-3 in that time. He had an 18-inning scoreless streak cut short in his last outing, a 4-1 win at Tampa Bay on Friday. He gave up one run and struck out seven batters in seven innings.
The left-hander has 16 quality starts on the season and is 11-6 with a 2.69 ERA in 22 starts. Bumgarner has made five career starts against Milwaukee and is 3-1 with a 1.25 ERA.
Matt Cain failed in his attempt to pitch the Giants to victory in Tuesday's 3-1 loss and gave up two runs in seven innings. He struck out six and did not walk a batter to fall to 7-7 on the season.
"I felt like I was getting ahead of those guys," Cain said. "Buster (Posey) and I got things going pretty quick and I was feeling pretty good."
Brandon Crawford and Roger Kieschnick each drove in a run for the Giants, who have lost three of four games and took the opener of this series on Monday.
The Brewers won for the second time in three tries and Wily Peralta earned the win by holding the defending World Series champions to a run in 6 1/3 innings. Jim Henderson tossed 1 1/3 innings of relief for his 16th save.
"I feel good. I think I needed an outing like that," Peralta said. "I was really struggling those last two."
Carlos Gomez homered and Norichika Aoki went 2-for-4 with two runs scored.
Marco Estrada draws the start for Milwaukee and is 4-4 with a 5.32 ERA in 12 starts. Estrada is expected to be activated off the disabled list to fight for a spot in the rotation and was bothered by a left hamstring strain.
"It's important for him to finish up well," Brewers manager Ron Roenicke said. "We know he can also go to the bullpen, but it's important for him to finish up well if he wants to continue starting, to show us what he did last year. It's different this year. I don't know why, but it's different."
Estrada has lost his last two starts and hasn't pitched since June 3 versus Oakland. He allowed five runs and nine hits in four innings in that one. The right-hander has no record or ERA in three appearances (1 start) against the Giants.
Milwaukee registered a three-game sweep of San Francisco from April 16-18 at Miller Park and had won four straight in this series until Monday.
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