"Is anyone besides Colorado's Ubaldo Jimenez pitching better in the National League right now than Matt Cain? Sorry, no, you do not get to say Stephen Strasburg after one start, spectacular though it was.

Great American Ball Park opened in 2003. The Reds have played 600 regular-season games here. Before Tuesday night's 3-0 Giants victory, only four visiting pitchers had thrown shutouts.

Cain made it five with a seven-hitter for his third complete game in four starts. His ERA over the last month has to be measured with an electron microscope. He has allowed one earned run over his last 34 innings (0.26) and three earned runs over his last 40 (0.68).

"He's a horse," catcher Bengie Molina said. "He smells a complete game. He smells a win. It's amazing."

"When somebody gets on against him," outfielder Aubrey Huff said, "it's shocking."

Nine Reds reached base against Cain, but Scott Rolen was the only one to say howdy to third base, in the second inning. Rolen was tagged out in a rundown between third and home on a Laynce Nix groundball.

The stress factor was greater than the final score suggested. Cain nursed a 1-0 lead into the eighth inning before a badly scuffling Molina stepped to the plate with two outs and two on. He lined a single to center against reliever Nick Masset that scored Nate Schierholtz, who was pinch running for Pat Burrell, for Molina's third RBI since May 5. Cain then sent his own RBI single to center, scoring Buster Posey, his second hit.

The Giants scored sufficiently without a hit from Freddy Sanchez, whose streak ended at 11 games.

When Cain threw the last of his 116 pitches, the Giants were 4-1 on this seven-game trip and moved seven games over .500 to match their season high. They also dealt the Reds consecutive home losses for only the second time this year.

Molina's slide had reached 4-for-53 before his single. The Reds pitched around Posey because they preferred facing Molina, who did not deny that the hit was big personally.

"You can say that," he said. "Just seeing that ball go through as a hit was amazing for me because of so many balls I hit so hard that were outs. We'll see what happens now."

Molina has taken a lot of grief from the faithful for his hitting, but he has a big defender in Cain."