Pardon me for invoking ancient internet memes, but this post is inspired by Matt Cain and his prodigious dinger against the Colorado Rockies on Sunday.

Cain’s blast got me wondering, “What’s the most HRs hit by a Giants pitcher over his career with the team?” Well, a quick search of the Baseball-Reference Play Index and I got my answer. My search criteria was as follows: years of 1950-2011, appeared in 70% of games at the pitcher position, played for the Giants franchise, sorted by most HR.

That returns the following results:

Rk             Player HR From   To   Age   G   PA  OPS Pos
1    Johnny Antonelli 15 1954 1960 24-30 305  611 .497  *1
2           Jim Hearn  9 1950 1956 29-35 226  484 .432  *1
3        Don Robinson  7 1987 1991 30-34 183  256 .463  *1
4           Matt Cain  5 2005 2011 20-26 207  445 .331  *1
5       Jason Schmidt  5 2001 2006 28-33 162  384 .321  *1
6         Bobby Bolin  5 1961 1969 22-30 346  422 .459  *1
7          Russ Ortiz  4 1998 2007 24-33 166  372 .570  *1
8            Jim Gott  4 1985 1987 25-27  65   70 .588 /*1
9     John Montefusco  4 1974 1980 24-30 189  421 .317  *1
10      Juan Marichal  4 1960 1973 22-35 462 1337 .394  *1

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Play Index Tool Used
Generated 9/20/2011.

In 611 career plate appearances with the Giants, Antonelli socked 15 home runs — quite an impressive feat for a pitcher. To compare, that’s more home runs that Otis Nixon ever hit (11 HR, 5,800 PAs); Frank Taveras (2 HR, 4,399 PAs); Bud Harrelson (7 HR, 5,516 PAs); and of course, Duane Kuiper (1 HR, 3,754 PAs).

Jim Gott somehow hit 4 homers in just 70 plate appearances. On May 12, 1985, Gott hit two home runs in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals; he finished the day 2-2 with both hits leaving the park, and he pitched seven innings while giving up three earned runs. In fact, Gott is only one of five pitchers in Giants history to hit two home runs in a single game. He’s joined by Jim Hearn, Dave Koslo, Hal Schumacher, and Art Nehf.

I’m one of those weirdos that actually likes to watch pitchers hit. I think it’s the reason why I find trivial facts like this so interesting. You can’t tell me that watching Matt Cain hit a home run to dead center against the Rockies didn’t fill you with joy. Those joy filled moments, no matter how weird and rare, are what make baseball such an endearing sport for me to watch.

Long live the pitcher hitting! Anything else just feels wrong.