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Brewers aim for season sweep of Giants

Jul 20, 2008 - 3:17 PM Milwaukee (54-43) at San Francisco (40-57) 4:05 pm EDT

SAN FRANCISCO (Ticker) -- The Milwaukee Brewers came into this weekend knowing they could do wonders for their confidence on the road with a strong series against the San Francisco Giants. With one more victory, they can do that and more.

The Brewers will aim for a season sweep of the Giants when the teams complete their three-game set on Sunday.

Milwaukee entered this weekend series with a 21-26 road, but has scored 17 runs to collect wins over the first two games of this series against the majors' worst home team to continue its march to the break-even mark away from home.

Even more impressively, a win in this contest would mark Milwaukee's first road sweep of any opponent this season and be the first road series sweep of San Francisco since June 21-23, 1999. A .500 mark on the road would also be significant for the Brewers in their pursuit of the Chicago Cubs (57-40), the team they trail by three games in the National League Central.

However, Sunday will present a difficult challenge to Milwaukee's offense as it faces All-Star Tim Lincecum (11-2, 2.57 ERA), who will be attempting to win for the fourth time in five starts.

While the righthander missed the Midsummer Classic due to dehydration, he was dominant in his start last Sunday, yielding one run and six hits over eight innings against the Chicago Cubs, striking out nine while collecting the victory in a 4-2 road win.

Milwaukee will counter with Manny Parra (8-2, 3.78), who will be hoping to overcome his struggles on the road. The lefthander, who is 3-2 with a 4.91 ERA on the road, is coming off an uneven outing on July 11, when he surrendered five runs - four earned - and six hits over 6 1/3 innings, but escaped without a decision in the Brewers' 6-5 setback to Cincinnati.