When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

06.04.2008
6/4/08: Cain Towed

Before we get to this afternoon’s game, some breaking news: Noah Lowry might be done for the year. Not a big surprise, but still a disappointment if true. I was looking forward to see if a healthy Lowry could regain his form from a couple years ago. Weird nerve ailments are ominous; let’s hope this doesn’t derail his career.

Mets 5, Giants 3: Last year, everyone who didn’t follow the Giants or bother to look beyond wins and losses wondered what was wrong with Matt Cain. The answer, of course, was nothing except for a high walk total. He was a gosh darn good pitcher who couldn’t catch a break. Not an ace, but we felt the season, if the lack of run support didn’t give him a permanent case of paranoid schizophrenia, would be a stepping stone toward a brighter tomorrow.

Not so fast. He’s had tough breaks again this year, but much of the inflated ERA has been of his own making. Prime example is the home game a couple weeks ago against the Chisox. Four no-hit innings, then blammo, four home runs in the next three.

As I write this he’s digging more holes, walking the opposing pitcher with two outs then giving up a homer to Jose Reyes. That’s not acceptable. He’s out of the game and now sports a 4.67 ERA. Extrapolating his work to a full 33–start season, his line would look like this:

217 IP / 198 H / 33 HR / 107 BB / 187 K 

Last year he walked a lot but kept the ball in the park. This year’s walk and home run totals are ugly, as if Jose Lima and Shawn Estes had a love child who wouldn’t even comb his hair on the way to visit Grandma on Sunday. Put another way, here’s a standard equation favored by many sabermetricians:

Walks + home runs = You’re killin’ me, meat 

Looking deeper at Cain’s pitch data (not including today), little has changed from last year. Same percentage of strikes to balls. Batters are actually making a little less contact this year, on 78% of swings, compared to last year (81%). He’s gotten to 3–0 counts slightly more often (7% to 5%), but his overall pitches per plate appearance are lower (3.83), in fact the lowest of his career. What’s going on?

Bruce Bochy said on the pregame show today that Cain has gotten too fastball-happy, teams are looking for it, and he’s not commanding it as well. That could explain the home runs. And home runs on their own aren’t terrible. It’s the free stuff that kills us.

That said, I’m not particularly worried. He’s a smart kid. Bochy and his staff are taking care of his arm. He’s just starting to learn how to take something off the fastball, an important tactical step. I predict that by July 1, his ERA will be under 4.

PLODAG: Travis Denker. Two extra base hits, one a triple on which he showed he can scoot a little. Beautiful inside-out swing on the triple, too.

The Upside: I’m going with Cain, believe it or not. After a game like this, he should be motivated to keep working hard. Cut down the walks, and he’ll be a co-ace.  
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[June 5, 2008 12:46 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Krukow said in the post-game show that Cain still have some things to learn but thus far has been refusing to listen; says it's all part of the process, he needs to fail before he's willing to listen, but just you watch once he learns. After all, he's only 23 years old.

[June 5, 2008 12:57 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Frank said

Yes, the walks are bad, but I cringe more on the steady diet of FBs from thigh to the belt. And, I must confess, this is from one who really likes thigh highs.

[June 5, 2008 8:10 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

You nailed it, Lefty. One of Cain's biggest problems is that he's not suppressing HR's this year like he was in the past.

HR/F% 06: 7.1% 07: 5.5% 08: 11.1%

A good bit of his value was that he was always among leader boards in HR/F%. This year, he's around the league average of 10-12% and it's really hurt him. Cain has always been an extreme flyball pitcher (career FB% of 46.9, league average is usually in the mid-30's) and I've always wondering if he could keep his HR/F rates as low as he has.

AT&T will suppress the longball some, but so far it's playing completely neutral this year in regards to the home run.

[June 5, 2008 11:58 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Jonathan said

I think Cain does have some residual psychological effects from last year. He gets too cute early in the count and has to come in late or just loses the guy. He has decent offspeed pitches--he should use them more, early in the count to "steal" strikes. He needs to learn to vary his fastballs. His fastball (I think it's a two-seamer) moves well but it always moves the same way. Even that would be ok if he could locate it better early in the count, but he can't. You give up home runs most often when you make a location mistake behind in the count, and Cain does that A LOT. You can't pitch in the major leagues if you can't locate your fastball. Cain can't locate his fastball often enough.

Under Righetti, the Giants have had a parade of pitchers who "don't listen." Livan, Schmidt, Zito, Benitez, now Cain--all of them nibbled without their stuff. Lincecum seems to be the only exception among the young pitchers, although Sanchez is showing more and more promise.

[June 5, 2008 2:54 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Jeremy said

Giants take Buster Posey at #5.