Giants' Matt Cain Finally Wins, but Victory is Overshadowed

On a night when the San Francisco's offense finally came through for Matt Cain, the right-hander's sparkling performance was overshadowed by a couple of other Giants.

Cain gave up four hits and no runs before leaving with one out in the sixth, pitching the Giants to a 4-0 victory over the Colorado Rockies.

It was Cain's first victory of the season, as he improves to 1-2 with a 4.41 ERA.

Despite the high ERA--which was inflated thanks to one poor start when he gave up nine runs against the Cardinals two weeks earlier--Cain has pitched well this season, as Monday night's performance was the fourth solid start in six tries for the righty.

Yet, Cain hadn't had any victories to show for his outings until the Giants broke through against the Rockies.

Cain was 7-16 with a 3.65 ERA in 2007, his second full season in the big leagues.

But manager Bruce Bochy and high-priced lefty Barry Zito were the stories on Monday.

Bochy, in his second year in San Francisco, surpassed former Giants manager Felipe Alou for most wins by a foreign-born manager in big-league history with 1,034. Bochy was born in France.

Meanwhile, the other piece of news was Zito's banishment to the bullpen following his latest stinker on Sunday, when he gave up six runs in the first inning of an eventual 10-1 loss to Cincinnati. Zito, who signed a $126-million deal before last season, is 0-6 in six starts in 2008.

It was fitting that Zito's demotion came the same day that Cain finally picked up a win.

Early last August, I had commented that Zito was getting all the breaks while Cain wasn't.

At the time, Zito was 8-10 with a 5.12 ERA while Cain was only 3-12 despite his fine 3.93 average. Ironically, Zito still, at that time, had a mathematical shot at approaching 18 to 20 wins (because he still had a dozen starts left), whereas Cain was trying to avoid 20 losses.

While this season Cain may get the same amount of run support thanks to the Giants' anemic offense, at least Zito's record now truly reflects his pitching.

Will Cain win more than seven games this year? Will Zito rebound from his struggles? We'll have to find out.