Eight years ago, it was hip in baseball-nerd circles to disparage teams that used first-round picks on high-school pitchers. Too risky, the newsgroup types wrote. Too injury prone. You might as well buy lottery tickets. So when the Giants used the #25 overall pick on a high-school pitcher, there were some seriously bunched up internet undies.
So on a day where there are some seriously bunched up internet undies -- Draft Day does that to the best of us -- it's only fitting that Matt Cain pitches a complete-game shutout. The point isn't that the Giants organization was right on Cain, which means they were automatically right with the two vroooom-laden centerfielders at the top of their draft. It's just kind of...amusing.
If it weren't for that weenie Troy Tulowitski, Cain would be in spitting distance of Orel Hershiser's ill-gotten record right now. As is, Cain has only allowed one earned run in his past 35 innings. He's already so good, so reliable that we often forget to ask a simple question: What if he keeps getting better? What if, at the age of 25, he decides to transcend the impressive work he's already done? Here's hoping that we're finding out right now.