SAN FRANCISCO–Madison Bumgarner shouldn’t have to do this anymore.
After three straight starts in which he lasted seven innings –three starts in which he allowed a combined three earned runs against a trio of National League playoff contenders– Bumgarner stood in the Giants’ clubhouse and answered a round of questions about the strength of his left shoulder.
If Bumgarner never rode a dirt bike in May, and if the Giants were in the heat of a pennant chase, perhaps Bumgarner wouldn’t have spent six minutes after the Giants’ 2-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Wednesday addressing how he feels when he’s out on the mound.
But Bumgarner is a professional athlete, one who will almost certainly command $200-plus million the next time he hits free agency, and he’s the ace of a last-place team. So even though Bumgarner has dominated the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Arizona Diamondbacks and finally the Chicago Cubs, three of the National League’s top clubs, in a span of 15 days, he fielded questions about a shoulder injury that he regrets ever happened.
“Good, yeah,” Bumgarner said, when asked how he’s feeling.
“Normal, just like I always have,” he said, when he was pressed to go deeper.
Should Bumgarner feel normal? Nearly four months ago, he crashed a dirt bike and jeopardized his season, and was fortunate to emerge from the injury with just a Grade 2 shoulder sprain and bruised ribs. He knows it could have been much worse.
Yet almost four months later, Bumgarner was back on the mound at AT&T Park, and flummoxing a Chicago Cubs’ lineup that had no answers for a three-time World Series champion, who remains as country tough as he does battled-tested.
“I think it’s a credit to his (Bumgarner) work ethic, too,” Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy said after Wednesday’s outing. “He put a lot of time to get back on the mound and I just think he’s shown what he’s really about too with the way he’s throwing the ball. Because we know how good he is, but still, that was a pretty serious injury he had to overcome.”
It was a serious injury, indeed, so just for good measure, after Wednesday’s seven-inning, one-run, seven-strikeout effort that followed on the heels of two other brilliant outings, Bumgarner was pushed again on the subject of his shoulder health.
With a suppressed laugh, in one of the those ‘you-really-aren’t-serious-but-actually-you’re-probably-serious’ tones, Bumgarner joked, “I’ll keep answering those questions.”
At this point, he shouldn’t have to.
If there was any doubt about Bumgarner’s stamina, strength or competitive demeanor, I’d be happy to point you to clips from the 2014 World Series. If there remains any doubt about how Bumgarner’s shoulder is feeling after a suffering an injury that left him on the disabled list for May, June and half of July, I’d be happy to point you to clips from his last three starts.
When Bumgarner returned to the field, there was serious, and likely legitimate concern that a franchise that was already out of playoff contention was pushing its ace past a point of reasonable expectation. San Francisco had nothing to gain by rushing Bumgarner back from injury, and it had already seen what had happened to closer Mark Melancon weeks earlier, when he returned to the mound after a disabled list stint that should have lasted longer.
If there’s one truism that’s emerged from Bumgarner’s career, though, it’s that no one should ever doubt him.
On July 15, Bumgarner said he was ready to go, and though he gave up three runs and took a loss against the San Diego Padres, for the most part, he showed flashes of his former self. On that night, questions about Bumgarner’s shoulder health were appropriate and expected.
Five days later, when Bumgarner again gave up two home runs to the Padres in a Giants’ loss, Bumgarner knew he would have to deal with doubters who felt he came back too early, potentially harming a prized pitching arm that should eventually land him one of baseball’s largest contracts.
Bumgarner himself admitted on Wednesday that doubt crept into his mind, acknowledging that when he was on the disabled list, he wasn’t sure how his return to the mound after the most severe injury of his career would fare.
“Honestly I felt like I was pretty positive with it and took it in stride the best I could given the obvious circumstances, but yeah, that’s three months almost on the DL, so obviously there’s going to be some times where doubt creeps in,” Bumgarner said. “But it’s just like anything else, you just got to deal with it. You can’t try to push it aside, you can’t try to trick yourself, you just go on.”
That may have been the first and only time a confident Bumgarner expressed that doubt may have been a factor.
And based on his performance against the Cubs, it will likely be the last.
Since his return from the disabled list, the Giants’ most durable starter has logged 38 innings and surrendered just 11 runs. He’s dropped his ERA to 2.71, struck out a batter per inning in each of his last three starts, and proven if San Francisco was in contention, there’s still one pitcher no playoff team would want to face.
Though Bochy has limited Bumgarner’s pitch count, a reasonable move at this juncture of the season, Bumgarner knows what he’s still capable of.
“I feel like I can throw as many as they’ll let me,” Bumgarner said. “I’m sure we all got to be smart at this point. But I feel good. I don’t really, there’s nothing else to put it besides that.”
On Wednesday, the Giants’ left-hander picked up just his second win of the season, a telling sign of the type of year he and his team have suffered through. But that win, a 2-1 nail-biter over the defending world champions, was one that shows just how much he means to the Giants’ franchise.
For the second time in six days, the Giants clinched a series against a team jockeying for playoff positioning, and they did it behind a pitcher whose presence goes far beyond the mound.
“It’s a big impact,” outfielder Hunter Pence said. “Not only just when he (Bumgarner) starts, but just his presence alone carries a lot of confidence that whether you call it osmosis or whatever, that mentality seeks into everybody. He’s very powerful.”
Bumgarner is back, and we never should have doubted him.