MIAMI -- It took one pitch Saturday for Matt Cain to lose his attempt at a shutout. It took one pitch for Barry Bonds to make Cain -- and everyone else at Dolphin Stadium -- forget about it.

Bonds launched a majestic two-run homer in the fifth -- No. 760 of his record-setting career -- that provided the deciding blow as the Giants outlasted Florida, 4-3, to capture their third straight victory.

It offered Bonds a rare chance to celebrate a long ball in a winning effort -- the Giants had previously lost 13 of the 23 games in which Bonds homered this season, including four of the last five. And it was particularly satisfying to enjoy it in a win for noted tough-luck loser Cain, who entered the game with the second-lowest run support among National League starters (3.59 a game).

"It's good that we won," Bonds said. "Cainer's been pitching great for us all year long, and we haven't been able to score any runs for him. We finally got a situation where we did score some runs for him and we also were able to hold it. We haven't been able to do that for him for a long time. The guy would probably have 20 wins already if half of them hadn't been our mistakes."

On this night, though, it was Cain who made the first mistake. Plagued by early-inning damage all season, Cain's first offering to Hanley Ramirez -- who's known to swing early in counts -- was drilled out to left.

"All of a sudden, you're looking up, it's one pitch, one run, and you're like, 'Oh, great,'" Cain said.

But after a triple and a single later in the inning put Florida up 2-0, Cain found his groove. He allowed just three hits over the next six innings.

"He's a tough kid," Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. "He keeps coming at you."

San Francisco tied the score in the fourth with RBI doubles by Bengie Molina and Rich Aurilia, but Mike Jacobs gave Florida the lead back with a 448-foot solo shot in the bottom of the inning.

That's when Bonds gave the announced crowd of 42,817 -- the largest at Dolphin Stadium since Opening Day 2005 -- the show they came to see.

Rick VandenHurk had surrendered Bonds' 754th career homer on July 27 in San Francisco, but handled the slugger with ease in his first two at-bats. Bonds took a curveball on the outside corner for strike three in the first inning, then struck out swinging on a high fastball in the fourth.

Bonds said video replay confirmed the first strike three was outside the zone, and he said his swings were hampered by his inability to get comfortable in the batter's box.

"I kept kicking it around and trying to find a spot," Bonds said.

Wherever he planted in the fifth inning seemed to work. Bonds came up with two outs after Ryan Klesko singled to keep the inning alive. On a 1-0 count, VandenHurk fired a fastball that started in but creeped back over the middle of the plate.

"You can't do that with him," said VandenHurk, a 22-year-old rookie from the Netherlands. "He's going to hit those mistakes out."

Bonds turned on the pitch and hammered it deep into the right-center-field stands, eliciting an explosion of flashbulbs and a loud ovation from the crowd.

The homer was Bonds' 11th go-ahead homer of the season and 26th long ball overall. It was just his 10th all-time at cavernous Dolphin Stadium, but at an estimated distance of 444 feet, it likely would have been out at any park.

"Huge home run," Bochy said. "He got every bit of it."

Bonds struck out looking again in his only other at-bat, which came in the seventh against left-handed reliever Taylor Tankersley. It was the seventh time in Bonds' career that he homered and struck out three times in the same game. Bonds was pulled for a defensive replacement in the ninth, and Bochy said the slugger will be out of the lineup for Sunday's matinee.

But by that time, he had already done enough, giving San Francisco its first lead and one which Cain and Brian Wilson would protect into the ninth.

It appeared that Cain might have another victory pried from his grasp when Jeremy Hermida doubled off Brad Hennessey to open the ninth and moved to third on a sac bunt. Alfredo Amezaga lined a ball toward second that made the fans cheer and made Cain, who was watching a tape-delayed view of the game on the trainer's room television, groan.

"We heard yelling out there," Cain said, "and I'm thinking, 'Oh no, he gave up a hit.'"

But Cain was able to exhale when he saw that the ball was hit right at Aurilia, who snared it and fired to third to double up a wandering Hermida.

"We haven't had a lot of breaks this year," Bochy said. "Tonight, we did."