By: Joe Lami

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.—Make it four straight wins for the San Francisco Giants, as they defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 2-0 in a pitching duel on Tuesday night.  It was a much needed performance by Tim Hudson, who was struggling entering the game. He pitched six and a third shutout innings, allowing five hits and striking out two earning the win in San Francisco’s major league best sixth shutout of the season.

“He was getting the ball down, his sinker was working tonight.  You need to locate and he did that tonight”, added Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy on Hudson’s performance.

Though Hudson did have a great outing, it started out shaky, as he gave up a double to leadoff the game.  Bay Area bred, Joe Pederson, smacked a double into center. He eventually got to third, but was stranded when Scott Van Slyke struck out to end the inning.  “The stranding in the first was huge. It allowed me to settle in,” Hudson added.

Carlos Frias was handed the loss, although he wasn’t too shabby either.  He gave up one run on seven hits in a career high, six innings.  It marks his first loss of the season, with his down fall coming in the third inning. 

Joe Panik was able to start a two out rally in the third with a single. He advanced to second base on another hit by Angel Pagan, and then Buster Posey earned his only hit of the night knocking in Panik.  The lone hit for Posey extends his hit streak to 11 games.

Hudson had a scare in the six inning when Adrian Gonzalez crushed one to right field, but Hunter Pence, in his first game back at AT&T, was able to battle the wind and come down with it at the wall. A relieved Hudson said “that ball would’ve been gone anywhere else but here, he crushed it”.

“Coming home is special,” commented Pence, after he played his first game at AT&T since game six of the World Series after battling what has been a season long injury. Bochy added “he was excited to play here”. The dugout definitely got a boost mentioned Hudson, “he gets the mojo going in the dugout”.

The Dodgers threatened to tie it again in the seventh inning.  The bases were loaded after a single and two walks, but with two outs Sergio Romo got the biggest out of the game.  Howie Kendrick hit one right back up the middle, but Romo was able to flag it down and toss it over to first to retire the side and save the lead.

San Francisco padded their lead on a few Dodgers’ errors in the eighth. Brandon Belt smacked a ball out to the track in left field, but Van Slyke had trouble with it and eventually dropped it.  Belt reached second on the error. Pence moved him to third on a ground out. Belt would make it 2-0 on a passed ball, as Yasmani Grandal couldn’t handle a Chris Hatcher pitch in the dirt.

Santiago Casilla came on in the ninth to earn his tenth save of the year.