I am not a major stat genius, merely a novice amateur with a significant interest in them. Someone more experienced than me should do some analysis on the ineptitude of the bullpen as well as the offense to support Matt Cain in his starts this year. He currently owns a 3.23 ERA, but the Giants are 2-8 in his starts! How can this be possible!?

So here is my amateur analysis of his starts so far, highlighting his performance, bullpen ERA and team run support (although I am not sure exactly how this one is calculated).

Cain
IP 64 ER 23 Hits 45 ERA 3.23

Bullpen (in his starts)
IP 23 ER 18 Hits 28 ERA 7.04

Run Support (I calculated as runs scored through the last inning that he was in the game)
2.9 runs per game

In those 3 categories there are also obvious outliers. Cain's start vs the Phillies where he lasted only 3 innings yielding 7 runs and 8 hits also is an outlier for the bullpen as it pitched 6 innings and only allowed 2 runs. The obvious outlier for the offense is the 15-3 drubbing of the Rockies where they scored 9 runs during his 6 innings of work. Taking those into account the numbers turn into this:

Cain
61 IP 16 ER 37 Hits ERA 2.36 (Team record still only 2-7 with these numbers!)

Bullpen
17 IP 16 ER 23 Hits ERA 8.47

Run Support: 20 runs in 9 starts or 2.22 runs per game

Someone more experienced could probably clean up these stats and make them more accurate and detailed, but I assume you all get the message. Even though sample size is fairly limited, we are almost 1/3 of the way through the season. Gallup polls and preliminary election projections are based on a smaller sample size than that. Either Cain is going to get victimized my incredible bad luck the whole entire season, or the entire team expects him to throw a complete game shutout every time out there so they are unprepared to score more than 1 run on offense and to enter the game from the bullpen if he cant last all 9 innings.

I would be very upset right now if I were Matt, especially with all the hubbub about Lincecum the newest phenom. Wasnt it just a month ago we were touting Cain as a Cy Young candidate for years to come and debating whether he or King Felix was better? Now he's almost forgotten. Poor Matty!