Not your ordinary connection
After 13 seasons together, Cain and Righetti are approaching the end of their partnership
CHICAGO » Matt Cain and Dave Righetti are approaching the logical end of their dozen-year professional relationship — an extraordinary stretch of continuity between a right-hander and his major league pitching coach.
It only makes sense: their fondest memories of one another involve throwing things.
Righetti won’t forget the time that he noticed Cain, as a 20-yearold “bull in a china closet,” be- ginning his long toss routine to get ready for a start. Most pitchers throw parallel to the warning track. Cain was perpendicular. Righetti knew that wasn’t how it was supposed to be done, but hmmpfh, OK. Part of coaching is letting players learn their own lessons. So Righetti didn’t say anything. In retrospect, he wishes he would have. How could he have known that Cain would air a throw into the bleachers and hit a fan in the head?
Cain won’t forget the time that Righetti, fuming over an umpire’s
inconsistent strike zone as well as a rookie left-hander who wasn’t handling it too well, flapped his arms in frustration and accidentally flung his pitch counter over the dugout rail and onto the field.
“Almost to the third base line,” said Cain, his voice full of mirth. “And then the best part, he had to go out and get it.”
Now, all these years later, Righetti is in his 17th season as the Giants’ pitching coach and Cain is coming down to those last few clicks. The Giants hold a $21 million option that they have no plan to exercise. Assuming this is Cain’s final month as a Giant, he would end a tenure here in which only Juan Marichal has started more games, only Marichal and Gaylord Perry have thrown more innings and only Marichal and Tim Lincecum have struck out more batters in the franchise’s 60-year history in San Francisco.
It’s a tenure that is as decorated as it is durable. It includes three World Series rings, a lower postseason ERA than Madison Bumgarner’s (really!), and in 2012, starting assignments in all three playoff series clinchers. And, of course, the only perfect game in the Giants’ 135 years of existence.
Righetti, 58, has been there for all of it — every humbling moment and heady triumph, pushing him at times, counseling him at others, scolding when needed and often yielding space to fail with the understanding that personal growth stands a better chance in the black soil of personal failure.
What a rarity in this transient sport: for every start that Cain has made, Righetti has been in the dugout keeping a close eye and counting his pitches. For every side session, Righetti stood watching alongside, a half-folded towel over one shoulder, sunglasses perched on his nose, and a sanitary sock loaded up with extra, mudrubbed baseballs at the ready. For every clubhouse champagne celebration, after Righetti slipped away for his quiet cry and Cain blinked the domestic brut sting out of his eyes, there was that moment when they would find one another, and no words were needed.
There is plenty to be said, though, as you’ll see. Both men recently sat down to share their thoughts on one of the most unique working relationships in franchise history: RIGHETTI » Barry ( Bonds) was still here, and we were in that weird place where we were trying to compete and we knew it wasn’t quite right. And here comes Matty, and he’s got this live fastball, and it’s, ‘ Whoa, that’s nice to see,’ this wild stallion, so to speak. He’d already hurt his arm in Aball, fractured his elbow. So he was walking around already with a little crook in his arm. You’re thinking, ‘Oh my goodness, is this going to happen for him? Can they move him up the ladder fast so they can take the most advantage of his stuff?’ But he moved up every level and you didn’t feel he was rushed. He was grinding, but he handled it. CAIN » I mean, I was raw. I was the kid who thought you could wing it up there. It’s ‘Let’s make every pitch as hard as possible. Let’s try to embarrass guys. Let’s not worry about the pitch count.’ I had no idea about the art of pitching. I still maybe don’t have an idea. (laughing) RIGHETTI » The fastball? You saw carry. Life. Those thick legs. You can just tell. He had it. Baby-faced but confident. Little bit of a bull in the china closet but in a good way. CAIN » There was the time ( Matt) Holliday hit that monster homer off me in Colorado, and he’s yelling at me around the bases — I’d hit him earlier in the game, and I might have told him to go to first — and I was upset as hell. I probably had three months in the big leagues. I remember Rags was upset too, and he’s coming onto the field while Holliday is still out there (running the bases). It was like Rags was going to take out Holliday for me. That’s how protective he is of his guys. I think he was ready for anything, if it came to that. RIGHETTI » His fastball had that natural, baby cut to it, so away to a righty, the darn thing would be off the end of the guy’s bat. So he’d get a lot of those fly-ball outs there. He’s not a guy who ever got a lot of extension. He does everything really short for a big, tall guy. He doesn’t have a huge stride. Really, he did a lot of it out of pure body and arm strength, and he still has great arm strength. CAIN » You learn that you’ve got to be craftier in different counts. Bengie (Molina) helped me a ton with that. He put me in uncomfortable situations all the time, throwing to different sides of the plate, and he trusted that I would be able to keep up with him. I noticed a huge turning point in my pitchability when I was able to throw to him, and that carried over to Buster (Posey) and the other guys. RIGHETTI » In terms of us getting along, if I had to get on him about something, I did it. I think he understood that. He’d say, ‘ Aw you’re always so mean.’ CAIN » I mean, Rags has seen me since I was 18 years old. He’s kind of raised me in the baseball sense. He’s seen me grow up and mature in lots of different ways. His kids (triplets Nicolette, Natalee and Wesley) were teenagers, not much younger than me, when I got there. So he usually knew exactly what I was thinking, or what I’d try to get away with. RIGHETTI » We were trying to get him past being that hard-luck guy. Not bad luck, but hard luck, because the other guy is pitching his ass off to beat you. You don’t want the reputation of being a hard-luck guy. I remember (Greg) Maddux stole a base on him that cost him a run. Might have been a one-run loss. Little things like that. By ’09, you saw him getting past that. And for three or four years, there, he obviously wasn’t a hard luck guy anymore. He won some of the biggest games in Giants history. CAIN » I’m kind of lucky, the perfect game (against Houston in 2012), I didn’t know I was doing it at the time. I was so full of the moment I was just going with it. I didn’t let my brain get in the way. I just kind of let everything happen, and luckily it did. RIGHETTI » The last couple years (following two arm surgeries) were frustrating only because you want the guy to do well because you know how hard he’s working at it. This spring was the first time he came to grips with, ‘ This is my stuff and I have to look for some movement here.’ He took something off his curveball, which wasn’t easy, because everything he always did was power, power, power. I’m really proud to watch what he’s done this year. It hasn’t translated to a lot of numbers or wins (3-11, 5.66 ERA), but I’m telling you, he’s a better pitcher, no doubt. CAIN » Realistically, it’s his reputation on the line if a guy is struggling. But it’s never, ’I’m going to throw you to the wayside and replace you.’ It’s, ‘Let’s try to figure this thing out.’ He’s had to do that throughout his career. He’s done it with myself, with Timmy, Barry Zito, he did it with Santiago Casilla, all these guys. He’s not going to write you off because you’re not performing for him or making him look bad. He takes it to heart. He looks at us like we’re all extra sons that he’s had. And we’ve won some big games because of it. RIGHETTI » We’re talking about him like he’s done pitching. He’s not done pitching. Not if he doesn’t want to be. CAIN » I can’t say for certain what’s going to happen. But sure, going into this season, I knew it was the last year of the contract and next year’s option would be crazy on the business side for them to pick up unless something extreme happens. RIGHETTI » We’d all like to see him finish over .500 and that (at 104-118) might be tough to do. But we never saw him as a .500 pitcher. It just turned out that way. Any time we put him out there, we felt we had a shot to win. CAIN » I realized this year that there’s a lot more to the game than being the front guy in the rotation or the special person they look to. I don’t think I knew it at the beginning of spring, but I started to try to at least be able to enjoy going to the field knowing, `Hey you know what? This could be my last season in uniform with the Giants, and if it is, let’s not come to the field upset about it. Let’s find a way to contribute back to the guys in the clubhouse.’ Be more of a leader vocally if I could. RIGHETTI » That’s the mindset we all used to have: make our starts, have our years, be there for the team. Be somebody you can count on. To do that for that many years in the same organization, boy, he’s got to feel great about that. And he’s got the perfect game in the back pocket, and the championships. It’s pretty cool just to watch his maturity and what he’s done with the team, his organization, his family, charity things, and the person he turned out to be. I’m sure his parents are very proud. I know we are.