PHOENIX Matt Cain solved his lack of run support Saturday night he drove some home himself. And for good measure, throw in a little Ty Cobb on the basepaths.
Cain, who had received just four runs of support in his four previous starts, broke open a one-run game with a two-run double in the sixth inning as the Giants ended a nine-game losing streak to the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 5-2 victory.
Cain (2-2) also pitched six innings of three-hit ball and struck out eight as the Giants ended a seven-game skid at Chase Field, including the first four games this year.
And if all that wasn't enough, Cain took a Lyle Overbay comebacker off his shin on the final out of the fourth inning, yet opened the fifth with a single. He then slid hard into shortstop Willie Bloomquist to break up a double play that ultimately led to the go-ahead run.
"That was an old-school performance," manager Bruce Bochy said. "He pitched, he swung the bat, he did it all tonight. He's playing the game the way it's supposed to be played. Pitchers can help themselves, too."
Cain welcomed Bochy's description of his all-around night.
"That's a huge compliment," Cain said. "That's the way I was brought up and taught by my pitching coach (Mauro Gozzo) since I was 11."
Gozzo taught Cain well. While Cain doesn't take players out on slides very often, he's always looking to do so. It stems from his old Germantown, Tenn., mentor.
"He was an old-school, grind-things-out type of guy who would always say, 'If things aren't going your way some days, find a way to make it work running bases hard or trying to get hits, whatever you can do to benefit the team.' "
Desperate for rally starters at the top of the order, Bochy went with a new duo in the first two spots, Gregor Blanco and Brandon Belt, and that also paid nice dividends.
Blanco walked to open the game and went to third on Arizona starter Trevor Cahill's errant pickoff throw to first. He subsequently scored on a Belt groundout.
Arizona tied the score in the third on an Aaron Hill triple and Bloomquist sacrifice fly. But San Francisco regained the lead in the fifth when Blanco reached on a fielder's choice grounder courtesy of Cain's slide, stole second and scored on Melky Cabrera's two-out double.
With two out in the sixth, Cahill hit Emmanuel Burriss and Brandon Crawford with pitches, and Cain doubled down the right-field line to score both runners.
The Diamondbacks got a run back on two Giants errors in the seventh, but the bullpen preserved Cain's win from there. San Francisco added an insurance run in the ninth when Belt tripled and scored on Cabrera's double.
Cahill (2-4) lost for the fourth time in his last five decisions.
"I didn't feel that sharp today," Cahill said. "It looked like after the first (Cain) didn't look very sharp, either. He was able to keep his team in it even though he didn't have his best stuff. I wasn't able to get out of that last inning and keep the team a little bit closer."
Plagued by poor defense much of the season, the Giants had a good night in the field despite the two errors. Crawford made two sparking plays to snuff rallies, and Joaquin Arias made a spectacular grab of a Ryan Roberts liner in the eighth behind the bag at the third and wheeled to nail Roberts with a long throw across the diamond.
Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla pitched a scoreless inning apiece to finish the game, with Casilla collecting his seventh save.
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