Another oldie is goodie against Giants

Henry Schulman - San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate)

You wonder if Greg Maddux and Mike Hampton will sit on a porch someday puffing cigars, sipping brandy that mere civilians cannot afford and laughing about their fortunes against the Giants.

Maddux will say, "I was on my last legs in 2008. I was 42 years old and they still couldn't beat me."

To which Hampton will say, "That's nothing, Mad Dog. I was out of the majors for three years. Three years! But I came back and dominated those guys like nothing happened."

Two nights after Maddux beat the Giants for the 30th time in his career, Hampton improved to 14-4 against them in Atlanta's 11-4 victory at China Basin, which ended in a light drizzle and a shower of boos.

Never mind that Hampton beat the Giants for the first time since 2003. After all, Rich Aurilia was the only San Francisco hitter with more than four career at-bats against him. More significant, this was the left-hander's first big-league win, period, since Aug. 14, 2005, before he was forced to sit out nearly three seasons with practically every injury in the Orthopedist's Handbook.

"There's always been some doubt with all the health issues I've been through," Hampton said. "I just kept pushing to get to this point. Three years of rehab has been for this day. Now it's come and gone. I've got to kind of refocus and set new goals."

On Tuesday night, Hampton at 35 was every bit the mystery to Giants hitters he was as a younger man. He held them to two runs in seven innings after he was battered for 10 runs over 10 innings by the Phillies and Cardinals in his first two starts of 2008.

Hampton even contributed an RBI double in a three-run fifth inning that doomed Jonathan Sanchez, who has not won since June 29 but looked better. The Braves added three runs in the seventh against Osiris Matos and five more against Sergio Romo in the ninth.

The first run against Sanchez scored on a double play. Then, the Braves scored twice more on successive doubles by Kelly Johnson, Hampton and Yunel Escobar.

"I was good until the fifth inning. Then I got in trouble with the pitcher," Sanchez said. "That was the guy I had to get out, because I had two outs. I got to 3-1 and he's a good hitter, and he hit that double."

The Giants did have a red-letter moment in an otherwise drab defeat. In the seventh inning, Fred Lewis hit a solo homer into the arcade in right-center. It was the Giants' first home run in two weeks, since Bengie Molina hit a pair against Washington.

The Giants' 62 homers rank dead last in the majors by a wide margin, and their recent drought has been staggering.

According to calculations by The Chronicle's Ray Ratto, there were 623 homers hit in the majors from the All-Star break until the moment Lewis went deep. The Giants had four of them. Even after Lewis' shot, nine major-leaguers had outhomered the Giants since the break.

"It is surprising," manager Bruce Bochy said. "We've got some guys who can drive the ball. These things run in streaks sometimes. I'm hoping we'll start driving the ball, not just home runs, but squaring up on balls and driving the gaps. We did have quite a skid there."

Lewis also singled and scored the Giants' first run against Hampton from the fifth spot in the lineup, where Bochy said Lewis will hit against left-handed pitchers.

The Giants launched a spirited rally against Braves reliever Jeff Bennett in the eighth, scoring on RBI singles by Aaron Rowand and Molina, but Will Ohman and Blaine Boyer struck out Lewis and Aurilia on six pitches to stop the final Giants threat.

Hampton is about to complete the eight-year, $121 million contract he signed before the 2001 season, and before he was hit with major elbow injuries. As he attempted to come back from those, he was bedeviled by muscle injuries galore. Many of his rehab starts ended with him limping off the mound.

But he was the Hampton of old against the Giants as he continually got S.F. to pound the ball into the ground. His reward, besides the extra work he caused the grounds crew, was a victory that was a long time coming.