Matt Cain has thrown the second perfect game this season. That sentence alone was, until the last few seasons, enough to make any baseball fan spin in their seat. Now consider some more interesting tidbits about this season:

There have been two no-hitters in addition to the aforementioned perfect games (Jered Weaver on May 2, Johan Santana on June 1).

There has also been an interleague no-no (Kevin Millwood, Charlie Furbush, Stephen Pryor, Lucas Luetge, Brandon League, and Tom Wilhelmsen on June 8).

By the way, it’s only the middle of June.

If that doesn’t raise any flags for you, you’re just not a baseball fan. Because baseball is all about numbers- stats, counts, and the history that comes with them. Perfect games, no-hitters, complete games, are all as much examples of numerical excellence as they are of physical greatness. Trouble is, when the numbers start to rise as a whole, the high points start to look, well, lower. It’s still an incredible feat to accomplish a perfect game, there’s no doubt about that. But when the frequency of such milestones increases enough, the law of diminished returns kicks in.

When that happens, not only does each successive perfect game lose some meaning, but every perfect game before it starts to lose some gravity as well. Obviously this occurs naturally to some degree; but what if the rate at which perfect games are being thrown has been inflated because of sudden changes to the pitching environment? Would that be cause enough for the MLB front office to take action?

Of course the question then becomes- what could possibly have such a profound impact on the quality of pitching in baseball- especially now that we’re in the tail end of the steroid era? Unless the end of the steroid era IS the cause. When you think about it, steroids in baseball didn’t just impact the hitters, who suddenly all became monstrous sluggers.

There was also a measurable impact on the pitchers who had to face those monsters every game. In order to stay competitive, over the past two decades the methods and intensity with with pitchers train have drastically been altered. Trouble is, there are no more of those doped-up sluggers left in baseball (hopefully). So while pitchers have trained in a system designed to prepare them to pitch against Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, or Sammy Sosa, the vast majority of hitters in the majors today simply don’t have that kind of power- and rightfully so. And as a result, we’re left with overpowering pitching which has no superhuman hitting counterpoint.

Of course, that’s just my own personal take on the “Year of The Pitcher” phenomenon. But if this recent upswing in pitching milestones really is the result of dominant pitching overcompensating for the steroid-addled hitting of the past, what could or should MLB do to address it? Personally I think lowering the mound might be a good start. It’s been done once before, way back in 1969, and may be just the thing needed to balance out today’s beastly pitching with the comparatively tamer hitting of the last few seasons.

Hopefully, though, hitters will just begin naturally increasing their acumen at the plate over time, and the trend will even itself out naturally over time. I certainly hope that happens soon, though- at the rate things are going, perfect games are going to be about as exciting a spectacle as a shutout in hockey. Sure, the players responsible are truly talented- but it happens so often, does anyone really care?

[ESPN] Cain throws perfect game with 14 Ks vs. Astros

MLB Baseball Recap: Final statistics from the Houston vs. San Francisco game played on June 13, 2012