Hey, whaddya know, Matt Cain got a win last night against the Washington Nationals. The Giants beat the Washington Nationals 3-2 in the series finale that secured the 4-game sweep. The Nationals turned out to be just what the doctor ordered for Cain, they are the weakest hitting team in the majors and hopefully the win can get Cain back on track. Don’t look now but the Giants are only 5 games out of 1st place in the NL West. In the past couple of years the NL West had been one of the tougher divisions in baseball, but it looks like it’s back to being one of the worst. Reminiscent of the days when a .500 record was good enough for 1st place.
Cain went 6.1 innings with 8 hits, 1 earned run, and as RMC points out, no home runs and only one walk. The longball has been Cain’s number one problem this year. In the past he’s always kept his HR/F ratio well under league average but this year it’s closer to the league average percentage of 10-12% at 10.3%. Without Zimmerman, the Nationals are a team without much power. They rank last in the National League in HR’s, even the Giants have more HR’s (46) than the Nats (42) do. So, if any team could get Cain back on track, it might be the Nats.
Cain won’t pitch again until June 14th when the Giants take on the A’s.
After Cain’s start last night, the Giants starting pitching looks like this when ranked by ERA+
Player ERA+ IP Tim Lincecum 194 83.2 Jonathan Sanchez 113 75.1 Matt Cain 94 85.1 Patrick Misch 72 42.0 Barry Zito 72 66.1
Lincecum has by far been the best pitcher on the Giants staff and in the National League he’s only second to Edison Volquez of the Reds. Sanchez has also thrown very well and after last nights start, Cain is closer to getting his ER+ over 100. He’s had a career ERA+ of 115 but he’s going to need to solve his HR problems to keep on suceeding. Misch and Zito have been equal when it comes to ERA+, the only difference is that Misch costs about $18M less per season.
Actually, about $14M, his salary this year is $14.5M, but, to paraphrase a long-ago politician, a million here, a million there, pretty soon you’re talking a lot of money. :^)
Homeruns are really a function of flyballs and random luck (except perhaps in Colorado, Texas, and probably Philadelphia), so I think the much better indication of Cain’s performance is his number of walks – one – and his K/BB ratio, which was 6:1.
And I found it funny that you mention how poor a hitting team the Nats are, but Cain gave up 8 hits in 6.1 innings, he was lucky to get out with only 1 run given up. Cain usually keeps the hit total low, but I think I’ll take this if it means he only walks one batter per game.
As far as being back on track, I think we need to take it one game at a time with Cain. As good as he’s been, he’s always been feast or famine, but usually sometime in the summer things click in and he is just super overall. I wasn’t worried about him now, I was much more worried his first full season with us, and less so but still very worried last season, but he’s a relatively known quality now, he’s going to have his ups and downs. And that’s OK because his ups are way better than his downs. Just roll with it.
What I would really like to see is one of your great Pitch F/X analysis of Cain’s start in Wash, to see how different it was compared to previous starts or something.
FYI, I’ve been having problems pulling up your website today, plus a while to post the above…
$14.5 this year, $18M next
Cain has always been an extreme flyball pitcher, but his first two years of full season starting he really kept the ball in the yard. Something like 7% in ’06 and 5% last year.
Cain is essentially striking out hitters and walking hitters at the same rate this year than previous years.
K%
06 – 21.9
07 – 19.6
08 – 20.0
BB%
06 – 10.6
07 – 9.5
08 – 10.8
The difference comes in when you look at his HR/F ratio
HR/F
06 – 7.1
07 – 5.5
08 – 10.3
>> And I found it funny that you mention how poor a hitting team the Nats are, but Cain gave up 8 hits in 6.1 innings, he was lucky to get out with only 1 run given up.
One of those hits was the weak chopper that Clippard hit. I’m just happy that his walks were down and he didn’t give up the longball.
I’d love to do a PFX analysis of his start but I just don’t have the time to pull all that data today, it’s a shame too, I bet theres some good info in there.
Sorry about the website problems, my host is having some hiccups today, hopefully they clear up soon.