Phil Dumatrait pitched 5 2/3 scoreless innings for his inaugural victory in Major League Baseball, and Xavier Nady hit a two-run home run in the Pirates' 3-1 edging of San Francisco tonight at PNC Park.

It had a shaky ending, though.

Closer Matt Capps entered the ninth with a three-run lead and gave up three singles on his first four pitches, those to Randy Winn, Aaron Rowand and Bengie Molina, to pull the Giants within 3-1.

But Rich Aurilia flied out, and Jose Castillo bounced into a 4-6-3 double play to end it.

Dumatrait, making his second start since the release of Matt Morris and the seventh of his career, limited the Giants to three hits, striking out five and walking one.

San Francisco's $126 million starter, Barry Zito, was trying to bounce back from a highly publicized banishment to the bullpen, and he responded with one of his cleaner outings in an otherwise poor season: He lasted five innings and was charged with two runs on five hits.

All the damage against Zito came with two swings: Jason Bay led off the fourth with a single, and Nady lined Zito's first-pitch curveball into the left-field bleachers for his fifth home run, National League-leading 34th RBI and a 2-0 lead.

Home plate umpire Rob Drake was calling Zito's patented curve for strikes even when it was high, but this one never reached the catcher's mitt.

Dumatrait escaped two jams along the way: He had runners at the corners and out in the second, but got two flyouts. In the sixth, Daniel Ortmeier led off with a double and would not budge from there. Dumatrait fanned Fred Lewis and got a comebacker from Winn.

Manager John Russell pulled him there in favor of Tyler Yates to face Rowand, and that worked well: Rowand swung over Yates' splitter for strike three.

Yates went another inning, and Damaso Marte pitched a sizzling eighth in which he froze all three batters he faced with a third-strike fastball.

Nate McLouth brought some insurance in the Pirates' eighth. He tripled off the fence in center field and, after being stuck on third with a Jason Bay infield single, he scored when Nady bounced into a double play.

No padding that RBI lead for Nady on that play.

The Pirates, after taking the first two of this three-game set, have won 12 of 14 against the Giants.

More details in tomorrow's Post-Gazette.