Giants finally solve Diamondbacks pitching in 5-1 win

SAN FRANCISCO The Arizona Diamondbacks don’t have Randy Johnson or Curt Schilling any longer. Brandon Webb is one of their pregame show analysts. Even Greg Swindell has moved on to other pursuits.

Yet their pitching staff has proved harder to crack than a coded language. Two games and six innings into the series, Alejandro De Aza and Buster Posey finally solved the cipher.

De Aza doubled home the Giants’ first run in 25 innings, Posey smacked a three-run home run, and the flood came just in time to make a winner of Tim Hudson, who spun six shutout innings Sunday in a 5-1 victory at AT&T Park.

Hudson’s outing might have been the final home start of his career. He’s lined up to pitch Saturday at Oakland a fitting bookend to a big league life that began with the A’s, where he starred for six seasons along with Barry Zito and Mark Mulder. The hope is that both Hudson and Zito will be able to appear in the same game in one form or another.

Hudson’s health was one of the variables that might have prevented that plan; his hip acted up in the second inning of his start Monday against the Reds. But the 40-year-old right-hander was able to keep from grinding too much while holding the Diamondbacks to four hits in six innings.

Hudson (8-8, 222-132 for his career) painted his way out of a jam in the fourth inning, when Ender Inciarte took a hustle double on center fielder Angel Pagan and advanced to third on a ground out. Hudson pitched carefully while walking David Peralta, then caught Welington Castillo looking at a cutter.

Rookie catcher Trevor Brown made his second big league start as Hudson picked up the 222nd victory of his career, the most among active pitchers. They teamed up perfectly on a pitchout in the fifth inning that resulted in an easy tag play on Jake Lamb at second base.

The Giants scrambled jets in the sixth, after Inciarte hit a two-out blooper and Paul Goldschmidt walked. But with Hunter Strickland and Josh Osich getting loose behind him, Hudson coaxed a foul fly from Peralta.

Hudson also used two double-play grounders and benefited from a fine play in the fifth by third baseman Matt Duffy, who barehanded a dribbler and made a difficult, submarine throw across the diamond.

And in the sixth, Hudson received something that no Giants pitcher had gotten in the series: a run of support.

Angel Pagan guided his bat through the zone and dunked a single to left field. Then De Aza, after fouling off a first-pitch curveball with a bunt attempt, lined the next pitch from Jeremy Hellickson into the left field corner.

Pagan raced home with the Giants’ first run in 25 innings and their first at home against the Diamondbacks in 36 innings. Arizona had shut out the Giants five times in nine games this season at AT&T Park; the 1938 Cubs are the only other team to post five shutouts in Giants home games in a single season.

Randall Delgado did not improve the situation. He walked Duffy and then served up Posey’s 19th home run of the season, matching Brandon Crawford for the team lead. (It should be a spirited competition over these final 13 games, regardless of where the Giants are in the standings.) The Giants added a run in the eighth when Duffy walked, stole second base and scored on Jarrett Parker’s single. Duffy is 9-for-9 in stolen bases this season; if he ends the season without an unsuccessful attempt, it would be the most steals without getting caught by a Giant in the club’s San Francisco era.

Strickland, Sergio Romo and Santiago Casilla helped the Giants improve to 70-4 when leading after seven innings. The Diamondbacks scored their lone run when Peralta hammered a shin-high pitch from Casilla into the arcade in the ninth.

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