Cain and Able

Matt Cain pitches tonight against the Rangers in game 2 of the World Series and I have decided to join the list of approximately 340,404 people who have used this "play on words" as a headline.

Giants Rotation or a High School Assembly?
Matt Cain (right), and Tim Lincecum

Cain faces off against Rangers lefty CJ Wilson who statistically, has actually been fairly similar to Cain all year.  They both possess solidly similar ERAs (3.14 Cain, 3.35 Wilson), slightly worse FIPs (3.65 Cain, 3.56 Wilson), and even worse xFIPs (4.19 Cain, 4.20 Wilson).  FIP, for those of you not in the know, stands for Fielder Independent Pitching which measures a pitcher's effectiveness only on the factors that he controls (strikeouts, walks, etc.), taking fielders out of the equation.  xFIP (expected FIP) expands on FIP and takes out the "luck" component of Home Runs, factoring in an average HR/FB ratio which is usually around 10-11%.  So, it should be no surprise then both Cain and Wilson have HR/FB ratios that are below league average (7.4% Cain, 5.3% Wilson) which leads them to having an earned run average decidely lower than you would "expect" according to their xFIP.

Matt Cain has the reputation as being a better, if not much better, pitcher than CJ Wilson but when you look at the numbers, it's really a toss up. "Cain is able" to pitch another gem tonight but so is CJ Wilson.  The Giants struggled to score runs all year and game one was more of an anomaly rather than a trend as the Giants scored more runs (11) than they did in the entire ALDS (9).  I expect a close, low scoring game tonight which of course means it will be a high scoring blowout.