are only “aces” to be considered “Winning pitchers”? Matt Cain is still a young guy, far from being in his prime, who can dominate a game. He isn’t as consistent as the perennial All-Star types in the game and the walks do get in the way, which usually lead to shorter outings. A lot of games are decided in innings 7-9, so if he’s not in there, he won’t get as many wins as a guy who consistently pitches into the late innings. But for anyone to say that failing to shut out the other team every start means he doesn’t have that “intangible” required to be a “winner” is preposterous.

For example, Lincecum lost a game because the umpire called time out and when Linc stopped his motion and the ump called a balk to allow in the winning run. That’s a totally ludicrous situation, and out of Linc’s control, but he “should have” won the game, no? Thus, he isn’t a winner. He should have intangibled his way to a win in that situation.

The same goes for Cain. He has been incredibly unlucky in that (a) his team rarely scores very many runs for him (not his fault, i.e, instead of losing 2-1 in your example, he could have won 3-2, 5-2, 10-2, 16-2.) and (b) the bullpen has blown leads in so many of his starts that he doesn’t get a Win. That doesn’t make him a loser and it doesn’t mean he doesn’t have that “intangible” to which you refer, unless of course, you mean “luck” when say “intangible.”

this whole discussion is ridiculous. It’s as if people think that if Cain’s teammates let him down, then somehow it’s Cain’s fault, even when the letdown occurs after he has left the game, which is absolutely absurd.

and I approve this message.

His walks aren’t actually that bad. He just has a tendency to walk people at the wrong times. His biggest problem is a lack of run support, which we all know. This has been going on since he first started.

I think this goes beyond coincidence. There are way more games where he pitched well enough to win and didn’t than games where he pitched poorly enough to lose and didn’t. Part of this, of course, is the Giants offense. Beyond this there has to be some reason. Why is he the one that is getting the bad efforts from the team over and over. It can’t be because he matches up against another teams ace because that goes away really quickly and becomes totally randomized after the second or third week of the season.

There are no coincidences. A coincidence is absolutely impossible. You could say a coincidence is a word used to describe something we don’t understand. Still, every effect has a cause. Things don’t just happen. So what is the cause of the Giants consistently performing poorly at the plate when Cain is on the mound?

I really have no answer. I could posit that they just don’t like him and play uninspired ball, but I have heard nothing to back that up. I know they can’t be bored because he isn’t Mark Portugal. It can’t be that he sucks at the plate and brings the team down.

Here are his starts/runs:
2005 – 23 runs scored in 7 games = 3.29
2006 – 154 runs in 32 = 4.81
2007 – 101 in 32 = 3.16
2008 – 53 in 15 = 3.53

Other than 2006, the team has consistently not scored runs for him. This is really less than 3 full years. As such it is still a pretty small sample size.

For his career he is getting roughly 3.85 runs of support a game and giving up about 4 runs every nine innings. His record is 25-34. Based on that I think his record should be better, but still under .500.

40-20 is ridiculous.

he’s a total asshole.

Beat that!