Homers spoil Lowry's strong start Lefty allows just three hits, but two long balls, in eight innings SAN FRANCISCO -- When Noah Lowry is at his best, he can throw all four of his pitches for strikes. Lowry accomplished that feat on Saturday, but he left two changeups out over the plate and the Pirates made him pay for both of them in the Giants' 2-0 loss at AT&T Park. "My location was right where I wanted to be as far as my fastball goes," Lowry said. "My curveball was great ... my slider was right where I wanted it to be. My changeup, for the most part, felt pretty good." "For the most part" wasn't enough for Lowry (2-4), whose three bad changeups turned into three hits, including two homers to left field, in eight innings. "My changeup was up at times today," Lowry said. "It costs me -- all three hits were changeups today. One was in, one was out, one was over the plate. It's something that I need to work on." The one in was a homer by Jose Castillo that hit off the top of the left-field wall in the second inning. The one over the plate was another solo shot to left field in the sixth by Jose Bautista. The other hit was in the fourth inning on a single by Jason Bay, but Lowry was almost flawless otherwise, striking out five and walking two. "He threw a great game, just like Matt Morris did yesterday," Giants manager Felipe Alou said. "Same thing, same kind of performance. No runs to defend." Before Friday, the Giants had won six of their last eight games and scored five or more runs in five of those wins. San Francisco has amassed a total of two runs in its last two games. The Giants scored two runs for Morris on Friday, and a day later, Lowry received little help from an offense that stranded seven runners. When catcher Todd Greene was asked about the two homers given up by Lowry, he felt the offense was more at fault. "Noah's performance was great, I'm not going to talk about two pitches," Greene said. "There was no excuse to lose that ballgame. We just haven't been consistent, period." San Francisco was stymied by 24-year-old Ian Snell (7-3), who scattered three hits over seven innings and struck out five. "He threw a great game," said Omar Vizquel. "[Snell threw] a lot of fastballs. He was shaky in the beginning of the game, but then he started throwing a lot of strikes." The Giants had their best chance to score in the eighth inning, when Snell was in the dugout and the hard-throwing Roberto Hernandez was on the mound. After pitch-hitter Jose Vizcaino lined out to short, Randy Winn hit a double to the center-field wall. Vizquel followed with a single to right that advanced Winn to third. But Steve Finley, who came into Saturday with a 14 at-bat hitless streak, ended the threat by grounding into an inning-ending double play. "We haven't been hitting the ball," Alou said. "We have been getting pretty good pitching, but not that much offense, unfortunately." In Alou's opinion, the Giants are having trouble at AT&T Park and are playing with fatigue. "It's been happening at home ... whatever it is, we look tired at home," Alou said. "Guys look slower at home. It's a combination of night-day-night-day games. On the road, it's usually night games until you arrive to the weekend when you play a day game. "Slow bats are from being tired. When I played, that's what is was for me." San Francisco had two runners on in the first and second innings, but couldn't capitalize on three walks issued by Snell. With Winn on third and Moises Alou on first with two outs in the first inning, Mark Sweeney struck out swinging to end the frame. In the second, it was Ray Durham and Greene aboard with one out. But Lowry popped up a bunt right to the catcher, and Winn flied out to right. "Who knows, maybe if I get that sacrifice down, maybe we get a base hit and get a rally going," Lowry said. "It was a combination -- [Snell] pitched well and we [stunk]," Greene said. "Everybody in this [clubhouse] has to do better." --

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