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Athletics-Giants Preview

Jun 14, 2009 - 6:13 AM By NICOLINO DIBENEDETTO STATS Writer

Oakland (27-34) at San Francisco (33-28), 4:05 p.m. EDT

Even when Matt Cain isn't at his best, he still wins.

On Sunday, Cain will try to help the San Francisco Giants complete their first three-game series sweep of the Oakland Athletics in nearly eight years.

Cain (8-1, 2.55 ERA), who went 8-14 with a 3.76 ERA last season, is tied with Los Angeles' Chad Billingsley, Colorado's Jason Marquis and Johan Santana of New York for the NL lead in wins, while also ranking among the leaders in ERA.

Santana is scheduled to face the New York Yankees and Billingsley is slated to meet Texas earlier on Sunday

Cain is coming off a subpar outing in Tuesday's 9-4 win at Arizona. The right-hander allowed four runs and six hits, including two homers, with a season high-tying five walks as he threw 115 pitches in 6 1-3 innings.

Manager Bruce Bochy, though, was impressed.

"I think (Tuesday) demonstrated, really, how much he's grown as a pitcher," he said. "He could have caved in. It wasn't going his way. He gave up four runs, we got down, but he gave us a gutty effort and battled out there as well as you can."

Cain has won five straight starts, and is 6-0 with a 2.17 ERA in his last seven appearances. However, he's 1-4 with a 3.38 ERA in five career starts against the A's, losing his last four outings with a 4.56 ERA.

He'll try to lead the Giants (33-28) to their first sweep of the A's (27-34) in the Bay Bridge Series since June 15-17, 2001 in San Francisco.

The Giants got a step closer to matching that feat, following Friday night's 3-0 win with a 5-2 victory Saturday. Randy Johnson allowed two runs and four hits over seven innings for his 301st career victory.

The A's are looking to avoid their fifth loss in six games after a season-high seven-game winning streak. Their recent struggles have been clearly evident at the plate, hitting .196 while scoring just 14 runs over the last five games.

Oakland, last in the majors with a .236 average, has 11 singles among 12 hits in this series.

Matt Holliday has totaled three hits in the last two games after going 1 for 16 over the previous five. The left fielder leads the team with a .279 batting average and 37 RBIs, and is second with eight homers - two behind designated hitter Jack Cust.

Holliday, who played from 2004-08 with Colorado, has four homers among six hits in his career versus Cain, but is batting .214 against the Giants' hurler.

Rookie Brett Anderson (3-6, 5.25) will make his first start against the Giants after being victimized by a big inning to take the loss in Tuesday's 10-5 defeat against Minnesota.

The 21-year-old left-hander allowed one run and five hits in the first five innings, but was tagged for four runs and five hits in the fifth before being pulled with two outs. That came five days after he scattered six hits in seven innings of a 7-0 win at the Chicago White Sox.

"I was one pitch away from a good start but I couldn't get out of the sixth," Anderson said following Tuesday's defeat. "I was up in the zone quite a bit and it was only a matter of time before they took advantage."