Tainting Perfect

Kids love candy. Everything from Starburts to Milkyways can almost be used as currency on the playground. Why do you think Halloween is the greatest holiday of the year? The day is 24 hours of insane amounts of free candy that not even your extra large Power Ranger pillow case can handle. After countless hours of tricking and treating, plus retying the crappy rubber band on your Red Ranger mask (I may or may not have a thing for Power Rangers), and essentially being kept awake by a day long sugar bender, you return home. And you remember what mom said? Don't eat all that candy at once, you'll upset your stomach. Did you listen? No. Before you knew it you were doubled over in pain the next morning trying to fake sick your way into not going to school.

Moral of the story: too much of a good thing is bad. (Insert Tim Kurkjian voice here) There have been a grand total of 22 perfect games in baseball history, 19 since the Live Ball Era. From 1888 to 1920, there were only four perfect games, each occurring an average of 3,824 days apart (number here is a bit skewed as two were pitched only five days apart. If outlier is omitted they occur on average every 5,098 days). Regardless, from 1920 to 1990, another nine perfect games were pitched, at a pace of one every 2,931 days (no perfect games recorded in the 1970s). From 1990 to 2004, there was a perfect game on average every 1,169 days. An originally conventional four year perfect game drought then happened from 2004 to 2008. But in 2009 something happened. Whether the steroids started wearing off or pitchers got a hold of Bradley Coopers pills from Limitless, the landscape changed. From 2009 to the present there have been five perfect games, coming once every 271 days!

The magic of twenty-seven up twenty-seven down used to be... well, magical. It used to be an achievement only a rare breed could achieve. The nature of a perfect game in itself, both random and unpredictable, is what makes it so special. It brought with it an aura godliness. Like the pitcher on the mound was more then what athletes call "in the zone" or "locked in," but rather, inhuman. I was lucky enough to watch both the David Wells and David Cone perfect games (1998 and 1999) live on TV, and to be very honest, they looked like they're playing a different game then everyone else. Every pitch was thrown effortlessly, with complete precision and control. Every pitch. It was special to watch during the game, but even better after it was over. For three hours and change, a unique energy buildt in the stadium, creating a buzz like nothing else in sports. Each pitch was received with a collective gasp as it hurtled toward the plate. And finally when the deal was sealed, the celebration on the mound rivaled that of winning the Pennant. It's a total "WOW" moment.

But as I woke yesterday morning, my first text showing was, "Giants P Matt Cain threw 1st perfect game in franchise history, struck out 14 in 10-0 win vs. Astros." I read it. Processed it. And the first thought I had was, "Really? Another one?" First of all congrats to Matt Cain, but does a perfect game mean as much as it meant 30 years ago? With five being pitched in the last three years, it seems like anyone, elite or average, can take the hill and toss one. Has the perfect game turned into the "morning after Halloween" candy?

What bothers me most is the fact that the stats just don't add up. We can all accept offensive numbers were bloated from the mid 80s to early 2000s due to steroids, but even then there was one perfect game about every three years. Looking at pitching numbers since the 2005, both ERA and WAR have flipped. From 2001 to 2011 only one pitcher finished the season with an ERA under 2.00 (Roger Clemens in 2005, 1.874). This gets a BIG asterisk. The closest anyone got aside from Clemens was Zack Greinke in 2009 with a 2.158. In comparison, from 1990 to 2000, four different players finished with an ERA under 2.00 (six years total), with Greg Maddux (94/95, 1.559/1.631) and Pedro Martinez (97/00, 1.902/1.742) doing it twice. As far as WAR is concerned, from 1990 to 2000, eighteen pitchers finished a season with WAR above 8.0, compared to just 11 from 2001 to 2011. Additionally, WHIP has remained relatively unchanged.

The bottom line is, perfect games are happening more often then ever before in the history of baseball. Normally, everything in baseball can be backed up by statistics; there is a number for everything. But for some reason, stats, and more importantly logic, cannot explain the recent spike in the frequency of perfect games. I guess worst case scenario, perfect games become Skittles. I can eat them til I am sick to my stomach. All day, every day, no problem.

~ Shilz