(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.
Without juicing (or with less, presumably), the era of the pitcher is returning -- hooray!!!
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
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?
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?
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.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
Clip from a great column by Joe Pos about the 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.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.” ~ Ruth Bader Ginsburg, paraphrasing Sarah Moore Grimké
A PERFECT GAME? They learned the error of their ways, and played cricket!
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
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.
Yeah, I know that, but really at some point in the fifth or sixth inning he had to start thinking this could go all the way. He couldn't not know. It's his job to know this, fer chirssakes. I just keep thinking about Dock Ellis.
Congratulations to the first Giant to throw a perfect game. Several guesses as to why there are more perfect games now than in the early era:
1. Better gloves, cleaner-smoother fields, better fielding skills and more speed in the field to eliminate potential hits (note the great play in last night's game).
2. Split finger fastball and other nasty pitches that have been developed and are nearly unhittable when a pitcher is "on".
3. There are generally better overall athletes, but pitchers gain an edge because it is harder for batters to hit the faster and faster curving pitches, especially without illegal drugs.
4. They've been watching cricket and learned a few things.
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Come to think of it, watching Cricket might have played a role...
Maybe the Astros were watching a Cricket game on TV in the dugout, so when they came up to bat they were groggy and sluggish, and their eyes were glazed over....
That would explain the kind of pitching and fielding that gives up 10 runs, too....
I think an amazing fact is the great pitchers that DIDN'T manage no-hitters. Offhand, Pedro Martinez, Curt Schilling, and Roger Clemens never managed. (Though I think Clemens had six one-hitters.) Tim Wakefield lost TWO no-hitters in the 9th inning, to the same team (Tampa Bay), in consecutive starts. Schilling lost a no-hitter on one of the very few times he shook off a sign from Jason Varitek.
Mike Mussina lost a perfect game with two out in the 9th and 2 strikes on the batter...Carl Everett (a pinch hitter) lined a single up the middle.
Interesting. The obvious explanation would seem to be that the pitches were a lot slower; the batters got a lot of wood on the ball but grounded/lined/flied out seven times; which means the bat speed surely was a lot slower as well?
Meade
For Christianity, by identifying truth with faith, must teach-and, properly understood, does teach-that any interference with the truth is immoral. A Christian with faith has nothing to fear from the facts
I think pitchers are better now than they ever were, and so are batters, so there is a balancing there, but the pitchers have slightly the better of it right now.
You have scores of pitchers right now who combine 95+mph fastballs with two or three other first-rate pitches, and outstanding control. When one of these guys is in a groove, it's a wonder that anyone hits the ball solidly. Pitching with the same stuff 50 years ago, many of them would have stats like Bob Gibson, Tom Seaver, and some of the other greats.
On the hitting side, the better hitters developed swings that cover the entire strike zone with power. Prior to the past few years, I had never seen so many home runs and screaming line drives hit on breaking balls on the outside corner, and other pitches that would previously have been considered virtually unhittable. The good ones have quick bats that allow them to wait and follow all sorts of devious pitches, and make good contact when players 40 years ago would have either whiffed or been caught flatfooted.
Most no-hitters require a large dose of luck, with hard-hit balls being directed right at the fielders, a few favorable umpire calls, and a couple outstanding catches. Why we are seeing a virtual blizzard of them right now, I have no idea.
