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Matt Cain celebrates with teammates after pitching a perfect game. (AP/Jeff Chiu)
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San Francisco Giants’ pitcher Matt Cain will always remember Wednesday as the day he joined the ranks of the baseball immortals after throwing a perfect game against the Houston Astros, marking the 22nd perfect game in the history of the major leagues.
The 27-year-old’s perfect game was also the first for the franchise.
The feat, accomplished in front of a sellout home crowd of 42,298, included 125 pitches, the most ever thrown in a perfect game. His perfect game was the fifth no-hitter of the season and the second perfect game after the Chicago White Sox’s Philip Humbler perfect tossing on April 21.
According to MLB.com, a perfect game occurs when a pitcher or pitchers “retires each batter on the opposing team during the entire course of a game.” The game must includes at least nine innings, and can have no batter reaching a base during the game.
Predictably, Cain’s brilliant play threw Twitter into a frenzy, and his name and the name of his ball club turned into trending topics late on Wednesday night.
