The myth of Game Seven

The National League Championship Series comes down to a Game Seven tonight. St. Louis will start Kyle Lohse, former Twin; San Francisco will start Matt Cain, author this year of a perfect game.

I am probably incapable of accurately assessing this matchup. Both men had fine seasons this year. Lohse is doubtless a better pitcher today than he was six to 10 years ago, but his failure to develop while with Minnesota colors my perception of him. He will, in my estimation, always be the punk who damaged Ron Gardenhire's office.

Lohse: Bad. Cain: Good. Now that I've said that, Lohse will probably throw 20 ground balls tonight and shut the Giants out. He's better than I want to admit.

Meanwhile, I offer this piece of goodness combining two of my favorite things: Baseball and Mythbusters. Cain earlier this summer filmed a segment with the Discovery show that has yet to air (exactly what myths they're exploring/exploding I'm not sure), and this weekend Tory Belleci and Kari Byron each tweeted links to this video.

Matt Cain's perfect game

Matt Cain: A very good pitcher
had a very great game.

While I was sleeping (yes, despite all the middle-of-the-night time stamps on my posts, it does happen), Matt Cain of the San Francisco Giants threw a perfect game.

It was one of the more dominant outings in baseball history, what with 14 strikeouts.

That makes five perfect games since July 2009 -- less than 36 months -- and that's not counting the Amando Galarraga "imperfect" game marred by the Jim Joyce umpiring error.

What I'm puzzling over -- and this will probably be my topic for the Monday print column -- is why do we suddenly have so many perfectos? Has something basic switched in the game, or is this just random happenstance?