losses dammit,, grammar, spell check, proof read, punctuation, beer, more please trolling Cain stats is more better with beer for sure

Tim Kurkjian had some good insight as to why this is happening. Quote him.

He has 73 decisions with 3+ runs of support, and 80 (should’ve been a 13-67, not 57, record) with less. Is that really “epic”? That’s one thing I’m asking – how’s it compare? And only 13 career wins with, I’m assuming only 1 or 2 runs of support is nice, but, not necessarily spectacular. If he was 64-9 in games with LESS than 3 runs of support, I’d agree; however, that’s not the case.

I get what you’re saying and I kind of agree in a sense, but issuing 5+ walks and even being around to finish a no-hitter is kind of an accomplishment, no? I mean that’s a lot of extra pitches even if you aren’t giving up any hits.

What does that have to do with his analysis of Cain’s perfecto? Back in 2010 he went all in with the “Giants got lucky, their pitching peaked at the right time, they don’t really have any good players, and even the pitching is actually overrated” meme. Whenever a Giants player does something good he has to dismiss it because if he were to admit the quality of the accomplishment then he’d have to admit that it’s possible he was wrong about the 2010 team. Last year Vogelsong was a fluke even though he’s doing it again. Cain is an overrated pitcher even though he’s been arguably the best pitcher in baseball this year. (Saw a crazy stat today: Matt Cain’s overall career record is 77-76, but in games where he’s gotten 3+ runs of support he’s 64-9. What’s crazier, that winning percentage with just 3+ runs of support, or the fact that he’s won 13 games with less than 3 runs of support in 6+ years?)

I’m the last person to argue that the Giants do everything right. In fact I could spend a lot of words explaining what they do wrong and what they could have won over the last 20 years with a few more bucks and better player development, but it’s hard to argue with the consistency with which they have at least competed for a playoff spot during the Brian Sabean era. With the exception of 2 or 3 years they’ve at least been in it to the last couple weeks of the season and other than the Braves, Yankees, and Red Sox, how many teams can say that? And how much money do 2 of those 3 teams spend to stay at that level?

Today on Twitter Olbermann flat out dismissed huge sections of the Giants history despite those years being filled with a bevy of stars and current or future Hall of Famers like Mays, McCovey, Cepeda, Marichal, Perry, Clark, Bonds, and Kent. I’m sorry, but you can’t claim to be a fan of baseball or a historian of the game or even be allowed to write a blog on MLB.com if you’re going to just offhandedly dismiss something of the greatest players in the game’s history as irrelevant.

(Apologies for the length of this comment)

That’s the real breakthrough these days, the way teams use that data to craft a pitching and defensive plan.

For hitters to bring the pendulum back, they’ll probably have to start being more realistic about their abilities (ie, make more contact, not less) and start thinking more of hitting as a craft, the way Ted Williams did and Joey Votto does now.