SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 8 (UPI) -- Tim Lincecum threw a two-hit gem in his playoff debut Thursday, carrying the San Francisco Giants to a 1-0 victory over Atlanta in their division series opener.
Lincecum, the 2008 and 2009 National League Cy Young Award winner, finally got a crack at a post-season game after four years in the majors and he made the most of it. He struck out 14, walked one and gave up two doubles in staking the Giants to a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five opening round series.
The teams will meet again Friday in San Francisco.
The game's only run came in the fourth inning when Buster Posey led off with a single, stole second and scored on a base hit by Cody Ross. That run was charged to Derek Lowe, who gave up four hits and struck out six over 5 1/3.
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Lincecum, who won five of his last six starts for a 16-10 regular-season record, allowed a double by Omar Infante leading off the first inning and then retired the next nine batters. After issuing a leadoff walk to Jason Heyward in the fourth, Lincecum mowed down the next 10 Braves.
Brian McCann managed a one-out double in the seventh but Lincecum made a nice fielding play on a slow hit grounder to retire Alex Gonzalez and he got Matt Diaz on a fly ball to center to end the inning.
Diaz, as it turned out, represented the final Atlanta hope at tying the game and he slammed his bat to the ground as the ball sailed harmlessly toward the outfield.
The final six Atlanta batters went in order, four of them by strikeouts.
Lincecum's performance followed the second no-hitter in playoff history thrown on Wednesday by Philadelphia's Roy Halladay. If San Francisco and Philadelphia go on to win their series, those two pitchers would likely face each other in the first game of the NLCS.
