By Jeremy Harness

The Giants could not complete the three-game sweep at City Field on Thursday, but at least they earned a valuable series win, particularly one on the road against a team with a winning record.

The sweep was taken away in the bottom of the ninth, when Michael Cuddyer’s single off reliever Sergio Romo brought in Curtis Granderson to hand the Giants a 5-4 loss to the New York Mets.

Tim Lincecum didn’t pitch terribly, but he ended up using too many pitches in a short period of time, which made his numbers look worse than they actually were. He gave up a pair of earned runs (three total) on only four hits, walking three and striking out five while keeping the Giants in the game.

However, he was only able to go 4 2/3 innings, due in large part to the fact that he used 102 pitches in the process.

He rolled through the first three innings without surrendering a run but ran into a little trouble in the fourth, as Travis d’Arnaud singled in a run to cut the Giants’ lead to a single run. In the next inning, Lincecum saw his lead evaporate and found his team trailing by one after a sac fly followed by a double by Cuddyer gave the Mets a 3-2 lead.

After that hit, Lincecum was pulled for Yusmeiro Petit, who got the Giants out of that inning without any further damage.

Brandon Crawford blasted the Giants back into the lead with a two-run homer in the sixth inning with two outs. However, Granderson responded in the next frame with an RBI single to tie things up off reliever Hunter Strickland to set up Cuddyer’s walk-off to send the Giants home on a sour note.

Regardless, the Giants will now head home – after a successful road trip – for a three-game series against Arizona that starts Friday before the Seattle Mainers come into town for a two-gamer at AT&T Park. The Giants and Mariners will then head north to Seattle for a two-game set at Safeco Field.