For those of you who don’t follow Major League Baseball, let me introduce you to Matt Cain, a starting pitcher for the San Francisco Giants.

Seven years ago in late August, the Giants called this young pitcher up to make his Major League debut.  Needing a starter for my fantasy baseball team, I picked him up on a lark.  He didn’t do too bad during those final weeks of the season, and since he showed promise, I re-drafted him the following season and have retained him as one of my three keeper picks every season since.  Because of that, there isn’t a player in baseball whose career I have followed better than this guy’s.

Unfortunately for Cain, he’s never really broken out into stardom despite his impressive talent.  The main reason is that he has always had a reputation as a hard luck pitcher.  In 2007, he compiled a pretty good 3.65 ERA, yet wound up with an ugly 7-16 record.  The following year was more of the same, 3.76 ERA, but an 8-14 won/loss total.  In 2011, he posted a filthy 2.88 ERA and only had a 12-11 record to show for it.  The guy’s luck is just horrible.

Having to pitch in this guy’s shadow didn’t help either…

But despite the tough luck, Cain had two admirable qualities for my fantasy team.  He was always healthy…. he hasn’t missed a start in his career, and not many pitchers can claim that distinction.  And he also has a knack for coming up huge for me when I need it…

If Matt were one of my characters….

Ever since Stinkerball became one of my recurring characters, I’ve always compared Cain to him.  One June 13th of this year, Cain got quite a bit of notoriety for pitching a perfect game against the Houston Astros.  On that day, this was the avatar I happened to have up…

Looking out for #2.

It not only was a rare appearance by Stinky in one of my avatars, but ES was even pointing at him!  So the following day, I posted a celebratory avatar for Cain (and the big point total he got me in my fantasy league) featuring Stinky in his role….

It only would have been more fitting had Buster Possum played Buster Posey.

I did a post way back in the early months of this blog about how I don’t believe in luck or any such related nonsense.  That didn’t stop me from throwing up my “The Unusual Suspects” avatar on my message board yesterday…. because I really, really needed Matt to come up with a big game for me last night, even though the fantasy baseball season ended three weeks ago.

He didn’t disappoint.

Matt Cain is THE MAN!!!  I absolutely love this kid, and look forward to following the rest of his career….

Oh, and the squirrel boycott is OVAH!!!!!  WOOHOO!!!!!!!!

Hooray! You can take off the lampshade now, ES.

I’ve been planning some upgrades for my site during the past week or so, and will hopefully roll them out by the end of the month.  To all of my squirrel lovers out there, thank you for your patience, and The Nest is officially back to business as usual!