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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Bumgarner's domination leaves Giants one win away

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San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner pitches in the sixth inning of Game 1 of the World Series against the Kansas City Royals.

Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, Mo. is a beautiful ballpark. There are fountains beyond the outfield walls and a giant crown atop the Jumbotron. But for all its interesting modern characteristics, it's a ballpark not used to hosting baseball games this late in the season. Future baseball fans, however, will look back and see that Kauffman Stadium played host to the final game of the 2014 MLB season.

This year's Fall Classic can easily be described as one of the more thrilling World Series in recent memory. In Game 1, Madison Bumgarner of the Giants completely shut down the Royals’ lineup en route to a 7-1 Giants victory in Kansas City. For 24 hours, the talk among baseball pundits was about whether the well of Kansas City magic that brought the Royals to the World Series had run dry.

Right on cue, the Royals evened the series at one with a 7-2 victory in Game 2. They followed that performance with a gritty and tense 3-2 victory in San Francisco to take a 2-1 lead in the series.

In Game 4, the Royals chased Giants’ starter Ryan Vogelsong from the game in the third inning. With a 4-1 lead and already a game up in the series, the Royals looked like they might be pulling away. Instead, their vaunted bullpen imploded. After cutting the deficit to 4-2 in the third, the Giants plated two runs in the fifth, three in the sixth and four in the seventh, giving the Giants an 11-4 lead that they would not relinquish. This tied the series at two apiece.

And then came the signature game of Bumgarner's career, a Game 5 that will go down in history as one of the all-time great World Series pitching performances. Bumgarner hurled a complete game, four-hit shutout. His outing marked the first such feat since Josh Beckett did the same in Game 6 of the 2003 World Series.

The six-foot, five-inch lefthander has cemented himself as one of the best pitchers in baseball. His postseason numbers are some of the best in all of baseball history. This postseason, he has a record of 3-1 with an ERA of 1.13 across 47.2 innings pitched.

In four career World Series starts, Bumgarner is 4-0 and has surrendered a total of one run. His 0.29 World Series ERA is the lowest in MLB history among pitchers with at least three starts in the Fall Classic. In Game 5, he retired the last nine hitters he faced, and 14 of the final 15.

And for the Giants, Bumgarner has given every indication this October that he will continue to give Giants fans reason to cheer for years to come.

At the young age of 25, with a team-friendly contract running through 2019 and the tag of a bonafide clutch playoff pitcher, a case could be made that Bumgarner is the best pitcher to build a franchise around for the next decade. Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers this year submitted one of the best seasons for a pitcher in recent memory, and Kershaw is a lock to win the NL Cy Young award. He would likely be the first choice of many to form a team around. But in the playoffs this year, Kershaw went 0-2 with a 7.82 ERA. In the 2013 NLCS, Kershaw was also 0-2 with an ERA of 6.30. Kershaw undeniably has better regular season statistics, but he has yet to extend his dominant performances deep into the postseason. If you’re trying to create a team built to win in October, there is a lot to be said for Bumgarner’s unrivaled postseason successes.

Regardless of the inevitable Kershaw versus Bumgarner debate, Bumgarner has established himself as one of the league's elite.