SFGate/San Francisco Chronicle
Maybe it's those cornea-burning uniforms the Giants wear Friday nights. They won for the fourth time in four games in 2010 while wearing la grande orange. Or perhaps it's something more basic.
Maybe, just maybe, you give Matt Cain a few runs and more times than not, he will carry you to the handshake line.
In this case, Cain needed only one. He jumped on a first-inning 1-0 lead and pitched his second career one-hitter in a 5-0 victory against Arizona. The hit was a second-inning drive off the right-field wall by Mark Reynolds for a double that barely eluded a leaping Nate Schierholtz.
Freddy Sanchez singled home the first-inning run to give Cain a precious lead. Pablo Sandoval hit his first home run in 125 at-bats and drove in three runs as the Giants beat the Diamondbacks for the first time this season and improved their meager record against the NL West to 5-12.
Cain looked as good as ever in his second consecutive complete game and third career shutout. He struck out a season-high nine and did not walk a batter for the second time this season, though he did hit Reynolds in the fifth.
"I felt good from the beginning," Cain said. "I was just trying to keep doing things and not try to think about a lot of stuff. I just let Bengie (Molina) call the game and stay in rhythm."
Cain's success was no mystery. Of the 122 pitches he threw, 83 were strikes. A lineup that swatted seven home runs and scored 21 runs in two games against the Giants in Phoenix last week had to swing defensively.
The scuttle on the field was that Reynolds' double would have been a home run in Arizona. It had a lot of backspin and its carry fooled Schierholtz, who crashed into the wall about the time the ball did, a foot or two from his glove. Schierholtz jammed his injured right shoulder into the fence.
"I'm just bummed I didn't catch up with the ball, especially with the outcome of the game," he said. "I felt I was pretty close. I didn't see it on TV. It just kept carrying and carrying. I didn't know the wall was there."
The other significant development besides Cain's great start was Sandoval's first homer in May and first three-RBI game since Sept. 22. The Panda started the night with a terrible three-pitch strikeout against Edwin Jackson and said that served as a good reminder to wait for a decent pitch to hit.
He did so in the third inning when he hit a sacrifice fly, in the fifth when he singled home a run and again when he took Chad Qualls over the center-field wall to start the eighth.
Sandoval was 0-for-4 on Thursday and decided that Friday night would begin "a new season."
"That's what I put in my mind," he said. "When you've got your last game and you struggled a little bit in the season, you try to put something new in your head. My mom told me that."
May was not a big power month for Sandoval last year, either. He hit two homers in May before pounding eight in June on the way to 25 for the year.
Asked if he was ready to predict a big bang next month, too, he nearly jumped out of his chair and said with a laugh, "I don't know. I don't want to say anything, just keep playing."
Cain in a groove
Matt Cain's third career shutout was also his second straight complete game without allowing an earned run. His past two starts:
Innings17
Hits6
Runs1
Earned runs0
Walks1
Strikeouts13
Record1-1
Note: In addition to his three career shutouts, Cain threw nine scoreless innings, allowing only three hits, in a 1-0, 10-inning win last year.
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