Matt Cain has such good stuff that it seemed like it was only a matter of time until he put his first no-hitter under his belt. But the big righty did all our expectations one better on a memorable and cool ?Wednesday night at AT&T Park, throwing a perfect game against the Houston Astros in a 10-0 win.?It was the second perfect game thrown this season, the 22nd in history and incredibly only the first in the 128-year history of the Giants franchise.
Any perfect game fits the definition of dominant, but Cain's effort will allow him to enter a rarefied air among perfect game pitchers. His 14 strikeouts on the night gave him a game score of 101 as well as a share of the record for most strikeouts in a perfect game. The pitcher he tied for that record? Just a Los Angeles Dodger by the name of Sandy Koufax, who struck out 14 Chicago Cubs in 1965.
[Video: Highlights from Matt Cain's perfect game | Buy SF Giants gear]
As is usually the case, Cain wouldn't have made history were it not for some great defense. Melky Cabrera started the heroics with a warning track grab of a Chris Snyder blast in the sixth inning, Gregor Blanco turned in the defensive play of the year after running down Jordan Schaefer's gap-seeking drive in the seventh (below) and Joaquin Arias gobbled up Jason Castro's tricky grounder to third for the 27th and final out.
We're still a few weeks away from the All-Star break and we've already seen five no-hitters this season. Cain joins fellow perfect game pitcher Philip Humber as well as Jered Weaver, Johan Santana and the six Seattle Mariners pitchers who combined for a no-hitter last Friday. The record for most no-hitters in a season is seven, which was reached in both 1990 and 1991.
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