Cain Gets it Done on Mound & at Plate, Giants Win 5-3

The San Francisco Giants have never been adept at scoring runs when Matt Cain is on the mound.

Obviously, it hasn't been by design, but there has been a noticeable correlation between when Cain's starts and the number of runs, or rather lack thereof, that the offense produces.

During his prime, so many of Cain's excellent outings were wasted because the offense couldn't score. The consistent inability to score runs during his starts became so frequent that Giants fans concocted the term "Cain'd," denoting an outing where a pitcher throws a gem but gets handed the loss due to a lack of run support.

Unfortunately, this season has been no different for Cain. Coming into today's game, the Giants have only averaged 1.96 runs per game with Cain on the mound, the lowest amount of run support in the big leagues.

With all this in mind, the veteran finally snapped against Jon Lester and the Chicago Cubs, getting it done on both sides of the ball, putting the Giants on his back to lead them to a 5-3 win.

Happy Cain Day.

On the mound, Cain was nothing short of excellent, striking out five over six innings, and if it hadn't been for a home run off the bat of the reigning Rookie of the Year, Kris Bryant, he would have held the Cubs scoreless.

The right-hander had excellent control on both his signature high fastball and his breaking pitches, both of which were the key to limiting the Cubs to just one run the day after they scored eight.

Today's quality start marked Cain's third straight, a feat that is otherworldly considering the streak of bad luck he ran into with big innings earlier in the season.

The start lowered his ERA from 5.87 to 5.37 after this afternoon's start. Ever since the nightmare outing against the Colorado Rockies, Cain's ERA has been steadily dropping since it peaked at 7.84.

In his last three starts, Cain has pitched only allowed four runs over 21 innings, good for an ERA of 1.71.

At the plate, Cain provided a little offense for himself, doubling off of Lester to knock in two runs. The double was his first hit since May of 2014.

Maybe all it took was Cain knocking in runs of his own for the San Francisco offense to find some life.

The Giant catchers followed Cain's lead, as in the third Buster Posey drove in two runs of his own with a home run and Trevor Brown knocked in one with a single.

The bullpen slightly sputtered, giving up two runs in three innings, but did just enough to hang on and secure the win.

#recap