Plan B Forum

Matt Cain throws perfect game as Giants win 10-0

Janie McCauley

Wednesday, June 13, 2012



(06-13) 22:06 PDT -- Matt Cain pitched the 22nd perfect game in major league history and first for the Giants, striking out a career-high 14 and getting help from two spectacular catches to beat the Houston Astros 10-0 on Wednesday night at AT&T Park.

Cain's 125-pitch masterpiece for San Francisco featured a pair of great plays by his corner outfielders, and he got pinch-hitter Jason Castro on a grounder to third for his 27th and final out with the sellout crowd of 42,298 roaring.

Left fielder Melky Cabrera chased down Chris Snyder's one-out flyball in the sixth, scurrying back to make a leaping catch at the wall. Cain raised both arms and slapped his glove in delight when Cabrera made the play. Then, right fielder Gregor Blanco ran into deep right-center to make a diving catch on the warning track and rob Jordan Schafer for the first out of the seventh. The 27-year-old pitcher hugged Blanco in the dugout after the inning.

Phil Humber of the Chicago White Sox tossed the last perfecto at Seattle on April 21. This is the second time in three years there have been two perfect games in the same season - before that, it had never happened.

Cain accomplished a feat even Hall of Famers Gaylord Perry and Juan Marichal couldn't with this storied franchise.

It was the fifth no-hitter already this season, and the third in June. Johan Santana tossed the New York Mets' first no-hitter on June 1 and six Seattle pitchers shut down the Los Angeles Dodgers last Friday. Jered Weaver had one for the Los Angeles Angels on May 2.

Janie McCauley is an Associated Press writer.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f ... 1P1C1C.DTL



2012 HearBst Communications Inc.

Sue U wrote:Wow. I wonder what he felt like going into the fifth or sixth inning and then the rest. Unbelieveable pressure, or just in the zone? At what point do you start thinking "This could really happen" and what does it do to your game?

OK, so figure this one: From 1900 to 1980 -- though many of those years were dominated by pitching -- there were only seven perfect games thrown.

In 1904, the great Cy Young threw a perfecto against Philadelphia.

In 1908, Addie Joss -- who would be elected to the Hall of Fame though he only pitched nine years -- threw a perfect game against Chicago.

Charlie Robertson was not a great pitcher, but he was great on April 30, 1922 against Detroit. The Tigers would say after that perfect game that he was cutting the baseball, and they even turned in a few baseballs after the game to league president Ban Johnson. Of course, the perfect game stood.

The next perfect game was Don Larsen's in the 1956 World Series, which inspired the classic line: "The imperfect man pitched a perfect game."

And the next three perfect games -- Jim Bunning, Sandy Koufax and Catfish Hunter -- were all pitched by future Hall of Famers.

The point is, for eighty years, there was a certain easy-to-follow rhythm about perfect games. You might see one a decade. And the value of these perfect games would be reinforced by the near misses surrounding them. Billy Pierce had his perfecto broken up by the 27th batter; Milt Pappas' 27th batter walked on a borderline pitch; Rick Wise gave up a run and then retired 32 straight batters; Curt Simmons, Robin Roberts and Woodie Fryman all gave up leadoff hits and then retired 27 in a row, Ernie Shore retired 27 straight (including a caught stealing) in relief of Babe Ruth (who was thrown out of the game after one batter), and, of course, most famously, Harvey Haddix threw 12 perfect innings only to have it all come to a sad ending in the 13th. The perfect game wasn't just a wonderful achievement, there was an aura about it. I once compared it to the four minute mile. I'll get back to that.

First, as you might know, since 1980 (starting with Len Barker's perfect game) there have been thirteen perfect games -- five of those in the last three years. And, not to belabor this point, it would be six in the last three years if the right call had made at the end of the Armando Galarraga game. It is obviously an unprecedented storm of perfectos. Wednesday night, Matt Cain threw a perfect game against Houston, and coupled with Phillip Humber's perfecto earlier this year that makes this the first season in baseball history that we have had a perfect game in each league. And we are only in June.

Guinevere wrote:Ball players are notoriously superstitious -- you don't think about about a no/no when its in process, you don't pay attention to the stats, and you don't talk about it EVER until its in the books.

Gob wrote:A PERFECT GAME? They learned the error of their ways, and played cricket!