Bloomin' lucky Matt

6 9 2 2 0 5

The "luck" associated with Matthew Thomas Cain has usually been of the "hard" variety, and especially in the form of "hard-luck loser." Baseball-Reference has a couple of stats for us to look at, naturally:

RS/GS (run support per game), that is,
runs scored/27 outs in the entire game when the pitcher started
and
RS/IP (run support per innings), that is
runs scored/27 outs while the pitcher was in the game as the pitcher

CAIN (career) 3.7 RS/GS and 3.1 RS/IP
MLB (average) 5.0 RS/GS and 4.1 RS/IP

Of course, none of us are surprised by this. What surprises us is when the tables are turned! That's why we all love the game, of course. Bloomin' lucky Matt threw 102 pitches and made it through six with the lead, despite giving up 9 hits. I remember hoping that he would keep his walks down tonight--of course he yields ZERO bases on balls. I figure Coach Righetti told him to "throw strikes, son" and so he did, 74 of them. I'm not sure if getting your strikes whacked all over the yard is a good thing, but the outs got made and that's what matters.

The weird part is that Jake Peavy gave up his FIRST EVER GRAND SLAM. To our number 8 hitter, The Rental, who had a big night. And the whole thing got set up by Travis Ishikawa's FIRST WALK of the season. (By the way, that sequence, walk-grand slam, saw our Win Expectancy go from 55.9 to 84.7%.) The weirdness is further compounded by that two-runners-at-the-plate deal in the fourth (a "bang-bang-bang" play?) in which Molina missed the first guy but got the second, saving Cain from a wretched inning. The relay throw was from none other than Mr. Ishikawa.

A nutty, nutty game. Nate Schierholtz appeared and delivered a ringing pinch hit. I could actually hear it ring on KNBR. Maybe Ol' Boch finally remembered that he had that extra guy and figured to let him play in a blowout. Maybe Ol' Boch'll give 'im a start or two. Nah, too nutty.

Matt Cain gets win number two and learns that with a little bit of bloomin' luck, he's movin' up.