A lot has been written about Matt Cain's unlucky season, but I just thought I'd add a few tidbits.

First, here are the worst winning percentages in a season for a pitcher with an ERA+ of 120 or better and at least 20 decisions:

 Cnt Player             **W-L%** ERA+ Dec Year Age Tm  Lg  G  GS CG SHO GF  W  L SV   IP   H   R   ER  BB  SO   ERA  HR  BF   AB  2B 3B IBB HBP  SH  SF GDP  SB CS Pk BK WP   BA   OBP   SLG   OPS  OPS+  Pit  Str
+----+-----------------+---------+----+---+----+---+---+--+---+--+--+---+--+--+--+--+-----+---+---+---+---+---+------+--+----+----+--+--+---+---+---+---+---+---+--+--+--+--+-----+-----+-----+-----+----+----+----+
    1 Eddie Smith          .190    120  21 1937  23 PHA AL  38 23 14   1 11  4 17  5 196.2 178 100  86  90  79   3.94 18  847                  4                        0  2                            0
    2 Ned Garvin           .238    158  21 1904  30 TOT ML  25 24 16   2  1  5 16  0 193.2 155  85  37  80  94   1.72  6  782                  6                        1  9                            0
    3 Buster Brown         .281    125  32 1910  28 BSN NL  46 29 16   1 11  9 23  2 263   251 113  78  94  88   2.67  4 1036                  4                        0  9                            0
    4 Matt Cain            .304    120  23 2007  22 SFG NL  31 31  1   0  0  7 16  0 193   168  82  79  78 155   3.68 12  806  710 40  7   3   5   8   5  15   8  5  0  0 12  .237  .315  .363  .678   79 3238 2041
    5 Brandon Webb         .304    124  23 2004  25 ARI NL  35 35  1   0  0  7 16  0 208   194 111  83 119 164   3.59 17  933  783 31  5  11  11  14   6  24  31 10  3  1 17  .248  .353  .365  .718   88 3438 2030
    6 Dummy Taylor         .308    132  26 1902  27 TOT ML  30 29 22   1  1  8 18  0 234.2 231 115  57  63  95   2.19  4  150                 17                        0  7                            0
    7 Howard Ehmke         .310    121  29 1925  31 BOS AL  34 31 22   0  3  9 20  1 260.2 285 141 108  85  95   3.73  8 1134                 11                        2  2                            0
    8 Jim Abbott           .318    144  22 1992  24 CAL AL  29 29  7   0  0  7 15  0 211   208  73  65  68 130   2.77 12  874  790 28  2   3   4   8   4  22  14 13  1  0  2  .263  .323  .349  .672   88
    9 Dennis Lamp          .318    123  22 1978  25 CHC NL  37 36  6   3  0  7 15  0 223.2 221  96  82  56  73   3.30 16  928  854 36  3   8   4  10   3  20  28  9  1  2  2  .259  .306  .364  .670   84
   10 Bill Piercy          .320    120  25 1923  27 BOS AL  30 24 11   0  4  8 17  0 187.1 193 105  71  73  51   3.41  5  815                 14                        0  6                            0
   11 Nolan Ryan           .333    142  24 1987  40 HOU NL  34 34  0   0  0  8 16  0 211.2 154  75  65  87 270   2.76 14  873  771 23  3   2   4   9   1   6  45  7  0  2 10  .200  .284  .292  .576   60
   12 Turk Farrell         .333    124  30 1962  28 HOU NL  43 29 11   2  9 10 20  4 241.2 210  91  81  55 203   3.02 21  981  902 33  8   2   5  12   6  17  25  7  1  0  9  .233  .279  .357  .636   81
   13 Jack Warhop          .345    126  29 1912  27 NYY AL  39 22 16   0 15 10 19  3 258   256 120  82  59 110   2.86  3 1039                 16                        0  2                            0
   14 Roger Erickson       .350    135  20 1980  23 MIN AL  32 27  7   0  1  7 13  0 191.1 198  83  69  56  97   3.25 13  811  740 31  5   0   4   5   6  13   5  7  4  2  5  .268  .320  .376  .696   85
   15 Moe Drabowsky        .350    126  20 1963  27 KCA AL  26 22  9   2  1  7 13  0 174.1 135  62  59  64 109   3.05 16  707  630 14  5   2   8   3   2  13  11  4  1  0  6  .214  .294  .329  .623   77
   16 Al Benton            .350    136  20 1942  31 DET AL  35 30  9   1  4  7 13  2 226.2 210  87  73  84 110   2.90  9  954                  0                        0  5                            0
   17 Andy Coakley         .357    129  28 1908  25 TOT NL  36 31 22   5  4 10 18  2 262.2 233  83  52  70  68   1.78  3 1026                  4                        0  1                            0
   18 Dolf Luque           .361    120  36 1922  31 CIN NL  39 32 18   0  5 13 23  0 261   266 123  96  72  79   3.31  7 1093                  1                        2  4                            0
   19 John Hiller          .364    121  22 1977  34 DET AL  45  8  3   0 27  8 14  7 124   120  59  49  61 115   3.56 15  539  465 15  1   8   1   7   5  11   6  9  0  0  6  .258  .342  .391  .733   95

There's Cain at #4. He and Brandon Webb have the worst seasons in the last 15 or so years, with the only other entrants from the last 30 years being Jim Abbott, Dennis Lamp, Nolan Ryan, Roger Erickson, and John Hiller.

Cain goes tonight for the Giants, in what is a very important game to his opponent (the Padres.) The Giants have a total of 5 games left, including an off-day, so this is probably Cain's last start of the season.

From Cain's 2007 splits page, here is his run support:

 Avg.  0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9|Other game totals
+----+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+-------------------------+
 3.17  4  4  6  7  6  1  0  1  0  1| 15 runs

That's alarmingly low, with 14 games at 2 or fewer runs.

More specifically, in 2007 Cain has:

• One game with 7 IP and 0 runs that he got a no-decision
• Four games where he allowed 1 ER (and no unearned runs) and got the loss (pitched 6, 7, 7, and 8 innings)
• Eight games (including the one above with 0 runs) where he allowed 3 or fewer runs and got no-decisions, and NO OTHER no-decision games. (No games where he allowed 5 or 6 runs, got knocked out, and then the Giants rallied to win, for example.)
• Allowed 4 or fewer earned runs in 27 of 31 game starts. In those 27 starts, he's got a record of 7-14.
• He'd tied with a bunch of guys for the 10th most quality starts this season, and only Ian Snell, Gil Meche, and Bronson Arroyo also have losing records.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 5:47 am and is filed under Season Finders, Splits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.