Naturals pitcher Matt Cain
It’s almost getting to the point where no hitters aren’t even worth discussing, and perfect games aren’t terribly rare either. But nonetheless, Natruals right hander Matt Cain pitched the 22nd perfect game in MLB history last night, arguably one of the most dominating pitching performances of all time. In addition to not allowing a base runner, Cain also struck out a career high 14 hitters during the Giants 10-0 victory over the Astros. The 14 strike outs matched Sandy Koufax for the most K’s in a perfect game.
Using Bill James’ Game Score statistic, Cain’s outing was tied for the second best pitched game of all time, trailing only Kerry Wood’s 1 hit, 20 strike out game in 1998. By the way, Wood’s game was also against the Astros, but a lineup that featured a couple possible future Hall of Famers. The same cannot be said of the Astros lineup last night. But that should not diminish Cain’s accomplishment.
While there have only been 22 perfect games in MLB history, five of them have occurred in the past four seasons, including two this year. Cain is the first DTBL player to do it this year tough since Phil Humber is not on the league roster. The last DTBL perfect game before last night belonged to Roy Halladay in May of 2010.
The history of perfect games is quite fascinating. There had been a gap of 34 years without one before Don Larsen threw a perfect game in the 1956 World Series. Then there was another 13 year drought between 1968 and 1981. 13 of the 22 have occurred in the past 32 years and nine since this league was formed in 1993. There have been a lot of theories as to why they have been so frequent in recent years. Some are fairly obvious: there are a lot more teams, and therefore more games played than there were in the first half of the 20th century. The end of the steroid era has led to better pitching numbers across the board in the last half dozen years or so. One theory I like is more about the increase in no hitters than perfect games: it could have a lot to do with the diminished focus on batting average as a significant stat. Strike outs are way up in the current era. It stands to reason that with fewer balls being put into play, fewer hits will fall in. But this is only a partial explanation since the MLB-wide batting average is not even close to historical lows. Whatever the reasons may be, perfect games are still extremely impressive achievements.
With his outing last night, Cain moved into the DTBL lead in WHIP with a miniscule 0.853 mark. Although he’s not likely to keep it there all season, only two DTBL players have finished a full season with a lower WHIP. His 2.18 ERA, eight wins and 96 strike outs are all in the top three of the league as well. Cain has been a solid performer for the Naturals since 2007. His highest ERA was a very respectable 3.57 in his DTBL rookie season (’07). Yet wins have been hard to come by, mostly due to the Giants anemic offense in recent years. Cain has never reached the 15 win mark, though he seems to be a pretty good bet to do it this year since he’s already more than half way there. He leads the Naturals in all pitching categories except for saves, so he deserves most of the credit for their league high 41 pitching points. The Naturals are currently in fourth place, but just eight points out of first. Their batting/pitching numbers are almost reversed from last year when it was their hitting that led them to a second place finish.
Cain was only one of several pitchers who put up extremely impressive numbers on Wednesday night. The Cardinals’ Lance Lynn matched Cain’s strike out total of 14, allowing three hits in 7+ scoreless innings. And R.A. Dickey nearly made it two no hitters in one night. He allowed just one infield hit in a complete game. The Mets are appealing to try to get the scoring of the one hit changed to an error, but I would be absolutely shocked if the appeal is upheld. Dickey has been an amazing story all year. Last night, he broke the Mets team record for consecutive scoreless innings before allowing an unearned run in the ninth. But since the Moonshiners signed him as a free agent a few weeks ago, he is yet to allow an earned run in 25 1/3 innings. He has won 10 games this year (three with the Moonshiners).
Finally, following my last blog post a few weeks ago, there were a few comments about possible rule changes for next season. I decided to start a Forum thread to get a discussion going. If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out and provide any feedback you may have.