Back-to-back brilliant games by Matt Cain of San Francisco, I think his first two starts since he signed his new contract, have moved Cain from 10th in the Starting Pitcher Rankings to 7th.   Cain’s 1-hit shutout of Pittsburgh on April 13, with 11 strikeouts and no walks, was the best game pitched in the five-day starter window April 9 to 13, and the best game pitched in the majors so far this season.    He followed that up with 9 innings of 2-hit shutout ball against Philadelphia on April 18, a start that missed by only one point of being the best game pitched in the majors in the five-day starter window April 14 to 18; that was a Game Score of 86, while Edwin Jackson’s 2-hitter against Cincinnati scores at 87.   These are the updated rankings through games of April 18:

                We’ve got some new information and some color-coding to explain here.   The season so far can be broken down into four five-day "start windows", which are:

                1)  The late March series in Japan,

                2)  April 4 to April 8,

                3)  April 9 to April 13, and

                4)  April 14 to April 18.

                Generally speaking, an active starting pitcher will have one start in each five-day window.  The number in there represents his Game Score in that Start; the "96" for Matt Cain in the 4-9 to 13 start window indicates that his Game Score there was 96, and this is highlighted because that was the best start by any major league starting pitcher in that five-day start window. 

                The top four starters in the majors are as they were at the start of the season—Verlander, Halladay, Cliff Lee and Clayton Kershaw.   The only change this week in the top ten major league pitchers is that Jon Lester, who moved into the top ten last week (replacing Tim Lincecum) dropped out of the top ten this week, replaced by C. J. Wilson.   Congratulations to C. J. on entering the top ten for the first time.

                To the right of the Game Scores are the pitcher’s ranking number and his current rank among the 187 active starting pitchers.   White-on-black indicates those pitchers who have moved up in the rankings the greatest distance since the start of the season (thus are in the black); white-on-red indicates those who have fallen the furthest (thus are in the red.)   Bartolo Colon has moved up the most spots so far this year, in part because he is maybe the only major league pitcher who has four starts already, but mostly because three of the four starts have been extremely good.    Others who are surging in the rankings include Derek Holland, Chad Billingsley, Jason Vargas and Kyle Lohse.  Francisco Liriano has fallen the furthest, dropping from 79^th to 105^th after three dismal starts.   Most of the pitchers who have fallen the furthest are those who are not in the starting rotation for one reason or another, but a few of them are pitchers who have pitched, but not well.

                In the past week Yovanni Gallardo has passed Zack Greinke to regain his position as Milwaukee’s #1 starting pitcher in our rankings—the only change of a team’s #1 in the past week.  Gallardo started the season as the #17 starter in the majors, dipped after a bad first start, and has regained his position with two good starts.  

                The highest-ranked pitcher who began the season unranked is Lucas Harrell of Houston, currently ranked 145^th.   He’s had two good starts in three. 

                Finally. . . ..are you curious what these rankings would have been on July 1, 1965?   1. Koufax, 2. Marichal, 3. Drysdale, 4. Bob Gibson, 5. Jim Maloney. . …124. Tom Parsons, 125. Catfish Hunter (then 19 years old), 126. Frank Kreutzer, 127. Wes Stock, 128. Floyd Weaver.    How about April 19, 1977?    1. Frank Tanana, 2. Tom Seaver, 3. Jim Palmer, 4. Bert Blyleven, 5. Nolan Ryan. . …142. Mike Krukow, 143. Mark Lemongello, 144. Steve Hargan, 145. Wayne Simpson, 146. Mike Flanagan.   Ten years ago today?    1.  Randy Johnson, 2. Pedro Martinez, 3. Curt Schilling, 4. Mike Mussina, 5. Javier Vazquez. . ..189. Tony McKnight, 190. Nate Cornejo, 191. Gil Heredia, 192. Adam Eaton, 193. Todd Stottlemyre.  

                You can find the rankings for any date since about 1958 (until two years ago today) by clicking on this link:

http://www.baseballmusings.com/cgi-bin/PitcherRatings.py

                And entering the date for which you would like to see rankings.  

                This is the site (Baseball Musings) of well-known baseball researcher (and good friend) Dave Pinto, who has programmed the rankings and combined it with a historical database.    He has blocked out the scores for the last two years out of consideration for me, so that he’s not trampling on my intellectual property, but it’s fun to pick out a pitcher and follow his progress in the rankings, and see who was the #1 at each moment in history.

                Thanks.  Sorry I’m a little late; I’m in Arizona, so I’m two hours behind.  

                Bill James