Everything in baseball evens out. Just like Randy Winn was hitting like .220 a week ago, we knew he was going to get hot sooner or later and bring his average closer to the .300 or .290 we all anticipated. The same thing goes for Cain. It is well documented that he has had some of the worst luck in baseball for years now, so finally he is catching some breaks. I think Cain will continue to get better and improve on the weak areas you mentioned leading to even more success without these breaks.

Where's "the love" for Madison Bumgarner after the write up on "the other" Timmy yesterday?

Ah, I can never resist the temptation of a "whither Matt Cain" discussion. The data on the increased usage of the curve is interesting, Lefty. It seems that he often drops it in to "steal" a strike at the beginning of at-bats, though I don't have the numbers on this.

Back at the end of February, Andy Baggarly reported that the Unit was impressing upon Cain the utility of his splitter to use as a change of pace: http://blogs.mercurynews.com/extrabaggs/2009/02/27/big-unit-shares-secrets-of-his-splitter-with-matt-cain/#more-852
Maybe Cain is looking for the same separation from the velocity of his other pitches, which are all above the mid-80s. I think that most of the peripherals suggest that he hasn't been as good as last year, but, like Ben, I won't be surprised if these improve.

FWIW, I did notice from the fangraphs database that his line-drive % on balls in play is down to around 16% from his mark of 23% last year. Small sample, but that's encouraging.

It's amazing to find a community as geeky as I am about this stuff.

While we are wondering about MPH on pitches, anyone care to guess how Zito regained 3 - 4 MPH on his fastball this year.

Hmmm. Must be those workouts with Wilson over the offseason

Yeah, it's interesting how Cain's numbers are all over the place and yet his overall numbers are so good.

I would note that he might be that rare pitcher who don't fall under DIPS spell. He's always been a pitcher who seemed to be able to prevent hits, with his multiple one-hit or low-hit games. That suggests that perhaps he is not one who regresses to the .300 BABIP mean that most pitchers regress to. And thus far in his career, he has been able to do that, except for last year.

In addition, his HR/FB has always been much lower than the 10% mean that most pitchers regress to. This is his first season where that rate is near the mean most pitchers regress to. Previously, he was roughly in the high 6% range. Yet, his ERA is pristine despite the huge uptick in HR and walks.

I would also note that his LD% is actually in line with what he did his first two full seasons of his career, so perhaps he is reverting to a way of pitching he used to do instead of whatever he did last season to achieve what he did. Or, it could have been just one of those odd years in 2008 where he changed nothing and yet his stats were all over the place different.

A big difference this year is the increase in flyballs, which probably contributes greatly to his increase in HR given up.

One thing I would note about his walks comes back to what I wondered about above: is he beyond DIPS? If he is, and is able to sustain a BABIP below average, then a higher walk rate, while not optimum, is not a career killer either, because if he is successful overall, that means that each walk he gives up contributes less offensively than the hits he is preventing with his pitching.

Another thing I would note is that while Cain has classic mid-90's fastballs, he has always appeared to pitch like pitcher who don't have such a good fastball, who has to survive on guile more than overpowering heat. Perhaps he's been pitching like that as long as things are going well, but can go to his fastball when he needs to. He could be pitching to the situation.

I would note two examples of this. Kirk Rueter apparently did this when he was with us. Rob Neyer of ESPN analyzed his pitching and found that depending on the count, Rueter would pitch hitters a certain way depending on the situation with runners on base.

In addition, Ching-Ming Wang of the Yankees apparently actually has a good fastball that he can use to get a strikeout, but most of the time he is satisfied to use his other pitches to get hitters out, compiling hideous K/9 rates that defy explanation for his success so far.

Cain's sterling ERA despite his high HR and walk rate suggests either extreme luck or that he too is pitching to the situation. And that has been true thus far this season, he has been lights out when there are runners on base, it has been when the bases are empty that he has been battered around.

Empty: .312/.391/.506/.897, 4 HR in 77 AB
Men on: .140/.254/.211/.464, 1 HR in 57 AB
RISP: .125/.241/.167/.408, 0 HR in 24 AB

HUGE difference, that's why he has such a high strand rate so far this season.

I've been looking at those same trend lines myself. I think Cain benefits quite a bit from the park--we all know fly balls die in San Francisco. And I think he's been lucky. The drop in strikeouts and the increase in walks can't be good. On the other hand, if he's "pitching smarter" and inducing more ground balls, he'll be effective. My "Cain-dicator" is those ground balls--when he's getting them he is usually very tough. I'm wondering if he needs another pitch, like a sinker, to stay ahead of the league. I also think that he suffers a bit from inflated expectations, perhaps due to his rise to the bigs at such a young age. He's a fine pitcher, a great #2, we're lucky to have him. But pitching alongside Tim Lincecum will make most good pitchers look ordinary.