• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Correia leads Giants past Cardinals

Apr 11, 2008 - 6:45 AM SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- Kevin Correia has apparently put his woes against the St. Louis Cardinals behind him.

Correia pitched 7 2/3 scoreless innings to lead the San Francisco Giants to a 5-1 victory over the Cardinals on Thursday night.

The 27-year-old Correia (1-1) had allowed nine runs in 14 innings in seven career appearances - including one start - against St. Louis entering Thursday's contest.

"There's no reason we can't be one of the best staffs in baseball," Correia told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Hopefully, I can work into that, but I wouldn't say I'm there yet."

The righthander dominated in this game, allowing just five hits and two walks while striking out five to pick up his first win of the season and lead the Giants to their third straight victory.

"A lot of us felt from the beginning of spring training, once we got on a roll (that) we were going to have a little more fun," reliever Brian Wilson told the Chronicle. "With that comes a better attitude and a better caliber of baseball. We hope to keep rolling with that."

Fred Lewis finished with two and scored a pair of runs for the Giants, who used a team effort on offense as five different players each drove in one run.

"(Lewis) has got a ton of talent," Giants manager Bruce Bochy told the Chronicle. "He's got discipline at the plate, power, speed. He's got all the tools to be a really good major-leaguer."

Aaron Rowand opened the scoring in the first inning plating Lewis, who started the frame with a double to left field.

San Francisco extended its lead to 2-0 in the third as Lewis once again touched home plate on a sacrifice fly by Randy Winn after leading off the inning with a triple to deep right-center field.

The Giants sealed the victory in the seventh.

After Ray Durham and Jose Castillo stroked back-to-back doubles to give San Francisco a three-run lead, Rich Aurilia plated Castillo with a single as the Giants increased their lead to 4-0.

San Francisco added another run in the eighth when Bengie Molina singled to right to score Winn, who singled to right and advanced to third when reliever Ron Villone threw the ball away while trying to pick off the Giants second baseman.

Troy Glaus doubled in the ninth inning, driving in Albert Pujols for the Cardinals' only run of the game.

"This is a ballpark where you've got to string hits," Glaus told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "It's not like walk, walk, (home run). You've got to bunch some hits. We had some opportunities late, but for the most part, we weren't able to do that tonight."

Adam Wainwright (1-1) suffered his first loss of the season after surrendering four runs and eight hits in seven innings. The 26-year-old righthander struck out six and did not issue a walk.

"I wasn't giving up singles," Wainwright told the Post-Dispatch. "I was giving up doubles and one triple. I deserve that loss tonight. Our team didn't, but I did."

"(Wainwright) pitched good enough to give us a chance to win," Cardinals manager Tony La Russa told the Post-Dispatch. "We just couldn't do enough offensively. The other guy pitched better."