TORONTO - Toronto Blue Jays manager Cito Gaston looks at Jesse Litsch and keeps on seeing 2008, specifically the right-hander's outstanding August and September in that breakthrough year.

The 25-year-old right-hander made his second big-league start since returning from Tommy John surgery on his elbow last June. He took a big step toward recapturing that form Saturday with seven shutout innings in a 3-0 interleague victory over the San Francisco Giants.

Litsch allowed just three hits and a hit-batter in an efficient and tidy outing. He handed a 0-0 game to the bullpen after 94 pitches, then watched Aaron Hill crushed a two-run homer in the eighth to break the deadlock.

The way he worked his changeup and biting cutter in with a fastball that routinely touched 93 miles an hour was reminiscent of his performances two years ago, when he closed out the '08 season by going 5-2 with a 1.92 ERA over nine starts.

"If he stays healthy and he pitches like he did today, that's what I look at," said Gaston. "I still have visions when he went out in 2008 and I thought he pitched as well as A.J. (Burnett) and Doc (Roy Halladay) down the stretch there.

"I just hope he comes back to that."

So do the Blue Jays (38-31), who would see a starting rotation that has already exceeded expectations this season get even stronger if Litsch fulfills his potential. His performance set the stage for Hill's 10th homer of the season, on a 1-1 fastball from a similarly tough Matt Cain.

Alex Gonzalez added an RBI single later in the eighth as the Blue Jays claimed a third straight win before a sun-soaked crowd of 20,666, again delivering a big-blow against the thunder-less Giants (37-30). Friday's 3-2 win was also decided by an eighth-inning homer, that one from Edwin Encarnacion.

"Very satisfying," Litsch said of his outing. "In some sense, you're always going out there trying to prove something. Proving it to (the team), to yourself, you just got to pick yourself up and run with it.

"Something like this is definitely a confidence booster and hopefully I can keep building off of this."

Shawn Camp (2-1) allowed a one-out double to Edgar Renteria but pitched a scoreless eighth, while Kevin Gregg closed things out in the ninth for his 18th save. But Litsch did the heavy lifting, matching zeros with Cain (6-5) until Hill unloaded.

"Jesse just did a great job," said Hill. "We wouldn't have been there if it wasn't for what he did. ...

"He can do what he did today pretty much all the time because he's got great command and he throws strikes."

A 13-game winner in '08, Litsch allowed seven runs in 2 1-3 innings versus Colorado in his first start since the surgery last weekend. He left a lot of pitches up in that outing and paid for them.

The Giants found the sledding much tougher than the Rockies, rarely making solid contact and watching the Blue Jays defence gobble up the ball on the few occasions they did.

"I went to the fastball more, I wasn't throwing as many cutters," said Litsch. "I was sinking the ball more and throwing the straight fastball like I was in the end of '08.

"We went back and looked at film and went back to that guy because when I came back up I had good success. I needed to get back into that mode."

Litsch's growth into a mid-rotation starter was derailed when his elbow blew up last spring. With Shaun Marcum, Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil and Brandon Morrow all blossoming in front of him, a resurgent Litsch could mean a rotation with no soft spots.

"It's going to make us better," said Gaston. "He just falls in with the rest of the guys here."