TORONTO - Timely hits have been few and far between of late for the Toronto Blue Jays but Edwin Encarnacion came up with a couple of big ones Friday night.

The slumping third baseman broke out of a brutal 2-for-26 slide with a two-run single in the fifth and a go-ahead solo home run on the first pitch of the eighth in a 3-2 interleague victory over the San Francisco Giants.

Encarnacion's big blows came on another night his team's all-or-nothing offence was mostly coming up empty, as the Blue Jays (37-31) managed just four hits off Barry Zito yet still managed to open a six-game homestand with a victory.

Brandon Morrow recovered from a rough start to throw six solid innings, Jason Frasor and Scott Downs (2-5) provided a scoreless frame each and Kevin Gregg handled the ninth for his 17th save before a crowd of 18,667.

The Giants (37-29) lost for the second time in three games.

The Blue Jays were back home from a 3-6 road trip during which they hit just six home runs while batting a dismal .208, scoring a mere 25 runs as a result.

It was more of the same Friday, as Zito (7-3) exploited their agressiveness with an array of dazzling breaking balls that led to lots of weak contact. He needed only eight pitches to escape the first, and six to end the seventh.

But his first pitch of the eighth was the costliest one, as Encarnacion drove it into the left-field seats for his ninth of the season.

Zito's first blip came in the fifth, when Encarnacion's two-run, broken-bat single put the Blue Jays up 2-1. The Giants gave them some help in the inning, as Alex Gonzalez opened things with a hard grounder to short that Juan Uribe bobbled for a generously scored hit, Toronto's first of the night. Jose Bautista was hit on the elbow and Lyle Overbay followed with a chopper that the Giants didn't get an out on to load the bases, setting the stage for Encarnacion.

Morrow failed to shut the Giants down in the sixth, giving up a leadoff double to Aubrey Huff before hitting Uribe. Bautista saved a run with a great decoy on Pat Burrell's liner into the right-field corner, freezing Huff by putting his glove up and giving Aaron Hill a chance to gun him down at the plate on the relay.

But Pablo Sandoval tied things up with run-scoring groundout right after.

Sandoval opened the scoring in the first with a bases loaded walk, part of a run of 10 straight balls thrown by Morrow.

The right-hander, who has lopped off nearly two runs from his ERA over his last five outings, recovered nicely from there and ended up pitching six innings of two-run ball, allowing five hits and three walks.

Notes: The Blue Jays signed infielder Nick Green and added him to the roster in place of utilityman Mike McCoy, who was sent to triple-A Las Vegas to be the starting shortstop. "We think (McCoy) has a chance to be an every day player but it's hard to evaluate him doing that on the bench here," said general manager Alex Anthopoulos. "He has a chance, potentially, to be an every day shortstop and leadoff hitter and a guy who can steal some bases." ... An MRI on Blue Jays RHP Dustin McGowan's troubled right shoulder revealed no new information but he'll see specialist Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala., on Monday. McGowan felt sharp pains in his shoulder while throwing recently, the latest setback in a comeback attempt from labrum surgery in July 2008. ... Anthopoulos and amateur scouting director Andrew Tinnish had what the GM called a good conversation with first-round pick Deck McGuire last week. Anthopoulos said talks with McGuire may go down to the wire, but he hoped they would not.