Shoddy defense is demise of Cards in loss to Giants

SAN FRANCISCO -- Matt Cain has had more than his share of stellar performances that ended up without a win because of a lack of support. That's why the San Francisco Giants felt so good about picking up their star pitcher on a day he wasn't at his best.

Brandon Crawford hit a two-run single for his first RBIs since April, and the Giants capitalized on shoddy fielding by St. Louis to overcome Cain's slow start and beat the Cardinals 7-5 on Thursday.

"Matt was out of sorts there early. He was just out of sync, just trying to find himself," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "He got better. That shows you how tough this guy is. He ended up pitching a pretty good game. It was nice to get him a win like that with all the tough games he's worked where we couldn't get him runs."

St. Louis made three errors in a game for the second time this week. The most important came in the sixth inning when third baseman David Freese's errant throw on pinch-hitter Aubrey Huff's two-out grounder allowed Brandon Belt to score the go-ahead run.

First baseman Lance Berkman also made an error in the second inning before Crawford's two-run single. Three of the five runs scored off Adam Wainwright (2-5) were unearned.

"That's not the kind of defense we've been accustomed to seeing this year, and not the kind of defense we're going to see the rest of the way," Cardinals manager Mike Matheny said. "It's just one of those games."

Cain (3-2) has been plagued by poor run support for his entire career with the Giants. They have scored a major league-low 3.89 runs per game for him since his first big league season in 2006.

They managed to score five runs with Cain in the game Thursday to make up for his rough start that included Matt Holliday's two-run homer in the third inning. Cain won for just the fifth time in 54 career starts when he allowed four earned runs.

"It's usually the other way around," Belt said. "He's usually battling his butt off like he did today and he's not getting the run support. Fortunately today we helped him out and got him the 'W.'"

Santiago Casilla pitched the ninth for his ninth save in 10 chances.

Cain allowed sacrifice flies by Holliday and Freese in the first inning and Holliday's two-run homer in the third to fall behind 4-3. Cain retired 10 of the final 11 batters he faced. He allowed eight hits over six innings.

Crawford doubled and scored on Buster Posey's single in the first and then hit his two-run single in the second to end a string of 16 consecutive games without an RBI.

Cain ended up on the winning side when the Giants scored twice in the sixth. Emmanuel Burriss tied it with a sacrifice fly, and Freese's errant throw scored Belt.