Saturday, April 12, 2014

Rockies Give Giants a Good Caining

Here are Matt Cain's career splits, home (top) and away:
                                                          
W     L   ERA   G     IP          H   R      HR  BB   SO   BF   WHIP SO/9 SO/BB
51   46  3.16  138  909.1  733  336  73  306 746 3709  1.143  7.4  2.44
42   43  3.60  130  822.2  717  353  82  275 695 3427  1.206  7.6  2.53

Provided by Baseball-Reference.com: View Original Table
Generated 4/12/2014.


Matt Cain is Matt Cain no matter where he pitches, it seems. Obviously the Park helps a bit, but overall he's the same cat out there every time. The last two starts were a bit ugly by Cainian standards, but today was more what we come to expect from the big righty. Of course, a Caining is also what we've come to expect over the years as well, and six Rockies pitchers made sure of that today in San Francisco. Matty had some command issues early, and racked up a lot of pitches, but he settled down and kept the Colorado hitters from any solid contact. I think they had two hard hit balls all afternoon. They scored the game's only run on a limp sacrifice fly to short right field, scoring leadoff man Charlie Blackmon who had walked, moved up on an infield hit, and stolen third base. It was a Giants and AT&T kind of ballgame but unfortunately it didn't work out in the Giants favor. Pagan was 0-for-4, Sandoval was 1-for-4 with two strikeouts, Morse was 0-for-4 with two whiffs and a double play, and Buster was 0-for-3 with a walk. Hector (0-4, 2K) Sanchez started behind the plate and batted sixth with Posey at first against the lefty Brett Anderson. Brandon Belt sat on the bench. The Rockies made the big pitches when they had to and snuffed out the few chances the Giants mustered.

Matt Cain gave the ballclub a heap o' quality innings. In the end, that's what matters. The starters have to have better starts and over the long haul that will pay off. It didn't today, and it is frustrating when the team loses a well-pitched game at home. But seeing Matt Cain be Matt Cain took some of the sting out.

Tim Hudson tomorrow afternoon.

GO GIANTS!

--M.C.


p.s. The nice folks at Da Capo Press (in particular, Kristina DeMichele) sent me an advance copy of Bill Madden's new book, 1954: the year Willie Mays and the first generation black superstars changed Major League Baseball forever. I'll put up a review on Monday when, like me, the Giants have an off-day.


2 comments:

Brother Bob said...

Too bad we dropped into second place. Damn those Doggers.

Zo said...

Giants hit a total of 4 balls out of the infield - one of which was an out. The good news was that we were there with Ron and Susanna on a fabulous afternoon. Cain took 63 pitches to get through the first three innings, but then all of a sudden became efficient, and wound up with a good outing. Too bad it was such a display of haplessness at the plate.