San Francisco Giants 5, Pittsburgh Pirates 0: Matt Cain and the nearly perfect opener
As home openers go, that was about perfect.
San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Matt Cain, right, tips his cap to the crowd after throwing a complete game shutout against the Pittsburgh Pirates in their Opening Day baseball game in San Francisco, Friday, April 13, 2012. Giants catcher Buster Posey. left, looks on. San Francisco won the game 5-0. (AP Photo/Eric Risberg)
Buster Posey spanked a first-inning pitch off the center field wall for a two-out RBI double in his first official at-bat at home since suffering a season-ending injury last season.
Aubrey Huff smacked a one-hop splash hit (you know, how we like splash hits, even though this wasn’t an official one) to give the Giants their seventh 4+ run game of the season.
And, of course, there was Matt Cain.
Cain has a losing record for his career, through no fault of his own as he’s been a historic victim of poor run support.
But on Friday, all the support Cain would need is the first-inning double by Posey. He faced 28 batters for the Giants’ second complete-game shutout in five days.
“What a day by Matt,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “We’ve all seen him locked in like this. He was as good as he’s been.”
The lone blemish? A sixth-inning single by Pirates’ pitcher James McDonald, a career .069 hitter.
“You think about, it’s like ‘Man, the pitcher stood in his way for a perfect game,’ ” McDonald said.
Cain was thinking about it.
“I was definitely aware of it, but I’m thinking there, ‘I’m behind in the count 2-1, but I’m throwing something to the outer third of the plate,’ ” Cain said. “He put a good swing on it. He did his job. He can hit.”
After that his, Cain went back to work, setting down the final 10 Pirates for a 106-pitch complete game that was over in a litte more than two hours.
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