Giants Win as Lincecum Shines

Giants ace Tim Lincecum went the distance in his first-ever playoff start, propelling the Giants to a 1-0 win over Atlanta in Game One of the NLDS.

In the process, he set a Giants franchise postseason record with 14 strikeouts while pitching a two-hitter.

Cody Ross singled home Buster Posey in the fourth inning to give the Giants their first and only run of the game.

This was after Posey was called safe by umpire Paul Emmel on a steal of second. "I guess it's a good thing we don't have instant replay right now," Posey said. "It was a beautiful slide, wasn't it?"

It was the first career steal for Posey, even though there was question as to whether he was tagged out by Brooks Conrad on the play -- retiring Braves manager Bobby Cox, the all-time leader in ejections, did not argue.

"I haven't seen it," Cox said. "Some of the guys came down after that inning and said he was out by six, eight inches. From the dugout you can't see anything."

Lincecum struck out Derrek Lee for the third time to end the 119-pitch masterpiece in 2 hours, 26 minutes. He became just the 12th pitcher with 14 or more strikeouts in a postseason game.

"That's one of the best efforts I've ever seen," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "What a great job that kid did. He's tough."

In a postseason already filled with plenty of stellar pitching, this was the first 1-0 game in the postseason since 2005, when the Chicago White Sox finished off a World Series sweep over Houston.

Game 2 of this best-of-five series is Friday night, with 13-game winner Matt Cain going for the Giants against Tommy Hanson.

Lincecum's only other complete game this season came in a six-hit shutout of the New York Mets on July 15. He threw all his pitches effectively, from his off-speed stuff to his power fastball.

"It kind of progressed as it did. All the pitches were working," Lincecum said. "It just felt like things were in place."

In the 8th inning, Lincecum broke the franchise postseason record with his 11th strikeout, then added three more to close out Atlanta.

Lincecum came into the game with a 6-2 record and a 2.89 ERA in his career against the Braves.

The 43,936 in attendance marked the largest postseason crowd in AT&T Park history.

The following is the NBC Bay Area Sports live blog of Giants/Braves Game One at AT&T Park.