San Francisco, CA – Tim Lincecum tossed seven shutout innings in the San Francisco Giants' 5-1 win over the Atlanta Braves in the finale of a four-game set.
Lincecum (3-2) fanned seven and surrendered just two hits and three walks for the Giants, who have won four of their past five contests.
"I found myself in some good situations where the team was scoring runs early and kept putting them on ... It allowed me to settle in and keep pitching," Lincecum said.
Pablo Sandoval, Brandon Belt and Marco Scutaro all smacked solo homers in the triumph.
Kris Medlen (1-5) allowed five runs -- three earned -- on eight hits and five walks over 5 1/3 innings for Atlanta, which dropped the last three tilts of the series.
"It's a very bad day to have a bad day," Medlen said. "It's just a tough outing overall, just terribly executed pitches overall."
The Giants plated a run apiece in each of the second, third and fourth and added two more in the fifth to jump out to a 5-0 lead.
Belt cracked a one-out opposite-field shot into the front row of seats in left center in the second and Sandoval clubbed a two-out blast into McCovey Cove in right in the third.
Belt reached on Dan Uggla's throwing error at second to start the fourth. He advanced to second on a Gregor Blanco walk and scored when Brandon Crawford grounded a single through the hole on the right side to make it 3-0.
Scutaro led off the fifth with a homer that just crept over the wall in left center. Sandoval then reached on Justin Upton's fielding error in left before being forced out at second on Pence's grounder to second. Pence then stole second before Belt walked and Pence was pushed across on Blanco's ground-rule double.
Jeremy Affeldt and George Kontos combined to fire a scoreless eighth, but Evan Gattis broke up the shutout with a two-out RBI double in the ninth.
Game Notes
Pence has seven stolen bases this season ... Lincecum's ERA dropped to 4.07 ... The Giants were 2-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left 12 men on base.
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