Lincecum mows down Braves as Giants win NLDS opener

"The story was him," said Lincecum's counterpart, Braves veteran Derek Lowe. "He struck out 14 guys. He obviously dominated."

Lowe pitched well -- four hits, one run and four walks in 5 1/3 innings -- but a couple of mistakes and a controversial call were enough to sink him on a night when Braves hitters were overmatched.

"It was a tough battle tonight, and he won it," Braves second baseman Brooks Conrad said of Lincecum.

Lincecum retired 19 of 20 batters between Omar Infate's first-inning leadoff double and Brian McCann's one-out double in the seventh.

The Giants scored the game's only run on Cody Ross' two-out single in the fourth, after second-base umpire Paul Emmel apparently missed a call and third baseman Omar Infante  missed a groundball.

Buster Posey, the Giants' rookie sensation from Leesburg, led off the fourth with a single and stole second base on a pitch that struck out Pat Burrell.  TV replays showed Conrad made the tag on Posey before he touched the base.

"I guess it's a good thing we don't have instant replay right now

," Posey said.

"I could see that he was out," Lowe said. "But that's part of the game. Those things happen in the game. It's just like we've all had calls go the other way, and it turns out a guy was safe.

"You’ve got to keep making quality pitches no matter what the situation is. One base hit turns out to be the game. But [Lincecum] was absolutely pounding strikes, there's no doubt about that."

Lowe struck out the next hitter, Juan Uribe, then intentionally walked Pablo Sandoval to bring up Ross, the former Marlin. He hit a grounder between third and shortstop that Infante was in position to field before the ball skipped under his glove without touching leather.

The ball rolled into left field to score Posey from second for the 1-0 lead.

Cox was asked about his decision to walk Sandoval, who had struck out in the second inning against Lowe. Cox pointed out that Sandoval was previously 4-for-10 against  Lowe.

"We made an error,"  Cox said tersely, referring to the Infante play, which the manager thought was ruled an error. "We made the right call. We got the groundball."

Asked about Emmel's ruling on the Posey slide, Cox said, ""Some of the guys came down after that inning and said he was out by 6 or 8 inches. From the dugout you can't see anything, and I didn't see a reaction from our infielders."

Emmel spoke briefly with a pool reporter after the game. He said he thought Posey was safe, and that neither Conrad nor any other Brave said anything after the call.

The Braves advanced only two runners beyond first base, and only one got to third base. Matt Diaz flied out with McCann at third to end the seventh inning.

"I had a chance for a two-out RBI and he beat me with a heater up," Diaz said. " It's definitely tough to take, and it is magnified in the playoffs. It always comes back to one pitch here or there, and certainly tonight with a 1-nothing game.

"But that's how we expect this whole series to be. We think we can come out on the winning end of a 1-nothing or 2-1 ballgame. That's what we're banking on, and hopefully we do that tomorrow and then go home and have some fun at home."

The Braves will start Tommy Hanson (10-11, 3.33 ERA) against Giants right-hander Matt Cain (13-11, 3.44. on Friday in the second game of the best-of-five series, which moves to Atlanta for Game 3 on Sunday and a potential Game 4 on Monday.

If the series goes the distance, Game 5 would be back in San Francisco on Wednesday.

Lincecum has a 6-2 record in eight regular-season starts against the Braves, with 61 strikeouts in 53 innings, including two double-digit strikeout games.

He took things to another level of mastery on Friday, when he topped all of those performances in the first postseason start of his career.

"Maybe he say Halladay and it motivated him," Lowe said, referring to Phillies ace Roy Halladay, who threw a no-hitter Wednesday in his first postseason start against Cincinnati in the other NLDS.

The Braves had a penchant this season for drawing walks, getting opposing starters to make early exits after building big pitch counts, then beating up on opposing bullpens. It was a big reason the Braves were able to lead the majors in wins in their final at-bat.

But they came out swinging against Lincecum, who needed only 105 pitches to get through the first eight innings, then finished them off with a perfect ninth inning capped by strikeouts of Jason Heyward and Derrek Lee.

Lee struck out three times, Heyward, Conrad and Lowe struck out twice, and five other Braves struck out once apiece.

"His ball was darting everywhere," McCann said. "He kept us off-balance. He'd get ahead off-speed and then bury it late. Then later in the game he started using a lot more fastballs. He kept us off-balance.

"It's hard [to lay off his pitches].  He throws 92-93 miles per hour and he's got one of the better changeups in the game. Now he's throwing a slider. And when he's locating his fastball, he's tough to hit."

Diaz said, "Obviously the scouting report on him is he likes to get ahead so he can use his off-speed. So we were trying to get him while he was getting ahead. But he was elevating his fastballs very well today. He was making it look like it was very hittable, just having it just a little above the belt, hence when we didn't strike out we popped it up."

The Braves' only base runner between Infante's in the first inning and McCann in the seventh was  Jason Heyward, who drew a leadoff walk in the fourth inning and was stranded when the next three batters popped out (Lee), flied out (McCann) and popped out foul (Alex Gonzalez).

Lowe was 5-1 with a 1.98 ERA in eight regular-season starts at AT&T Park, and 3-0 with a 1.32 ERA in his past five starts against the Giants, and was 5-0 with a 1.17 ERA in September to beat out Lincecum for NL Pitcher of the Month.

Combine that with his postseason success, and it was easy to see why the Braves felt confident with Lowe going to the mound. The Braves needed to win badly with Lowe on the mound, especially given the nature of short (best-of-five) series and how quickly momentum can be set.

But they've won only one game in six over the past two seasons at San Francisco, and only five of 17 over the past five seasons.

Lowe worked out of a jam in the third inning by striking out Aubrey Huff with runners at second and third. Ross walked and Andres Torres reached on an error by second baseman Brooks Conrad, who has an error in five consecutive games.

Lowe got out of another tight spot unscathed in the sixth with a big assist from rookie reliever Jonny Venters, who came on with runners at first and third and immediately induced an inning-ending double-play grounder by Sandoval.

Posey had led off the sixth with a double over the head of center fielder Rick Ankiel and off the base of the fence. Posey went to third when Ankiel failed to pick up the ball cleanly, the second error for the mistake-prone Braves.

In the National League, only Pittsburgh and Washington made more errors this season than the Braves (126), and those teams made only one more apiece. No other NL playoff team had more than 83.