As Madison Bumgarner walked across the plate into the right-side batter’s box, Buster Posey tapped his butt with his glove.
Posey has caught 1,451.1 innings worth of Bumgarner pitches. This time, the Oracle Park crowd gave the latter a standing ovation, with Thursday being the first time Bumgarner pitched here in front of fans since leaving the team after 10 seasons.
Bumgarner returned to the mound where he led the Giants to three World Series titles and became one of the most decorated postseason pitchers of all time — his career 0.25 World Series ERA is unmatched among any hurler with at least four decisions.
It was also on that mound where he delivered the final pitch of that season to batterymate Posey. But the Oracle Park mound wasn’t as kind to him Thursday, as the historically excellent Giants came back from a 3-0 deficit with eight hits and four runs off the former Giant. Bumgarner’s slow-developing, looping motion only generated five whiffs on 79 pitches and he left a tie game after five remarkably unremarkable innings.
The Giants (105-54) struggled to break through after knocking Bumgarner out of the game, but then Wilmer Flores jolted a one-out double in the ninth. After an intentional walk and a true walk later, “Late Night LaMonte” Wade Jr. added to his outrageously clutch season.
In San Francisco, Wade Jr.’s walk-off single capped a night full of nostalgia and standing ovations. In Los Angeles, Fernando Tatis Jr. hit a home run out of Dodger Stadium, but the Dodgers won 8-3, so SF’s division lead holds at two games with three to play.
The win wasn’t easy for SF. Before Bumgarner even stepped on the rubber, the Giants started the game in about the worst way imaginable.
Scott Kazmir walked two batters before allowing an RBI single into shallow center. Then Donovan Solano and Austin Slater miscommunicated on a pop fly, which dropped between them. With one out and the bases loaded, Kazmir injured himself on the next play while trying to cover first. The runner was safe, as was another who crossed the plate, and Kazmir limped off the field after ⅓ of an inning.
So it became a bullpen game, even as the Giants are undermanned.
Arizona’s three-run inning was so long, Bumgarner stepped into the batter’s box before he threw a pitch. His former catcher tapped his butt, and Bumgarner tipped his batting helmet to the crowd.
By then, the Giants already trailed 3-0, and the sky over McCovey Cove had already turned from pinkish blue to a hazy gray.
But San Francisco gradually came back. Austin Slater’s single and Darin Ruf’s double off the center field wall got one run back in the first. The two also combined to set up another score in the third by stringing together singles before Posey drove Slater in with a sacrifice fly.
The outfield in which Bumgarner toted the 2014 World Series flag atop horseback saw plenty of action.
Ruf’s third-inning single came on a perfectly placed 1-0 breaking ball on the low outside corner from Bumgarner. Even when he hit his spots, the Giants could connect.
Ruf, in his first game back from the injured list (oblique), added a sliding catch in the fourth during the second of Johnny Cueto’s 2.1 innings in relief. It was the first time in his 14-year career Cueto came out of the bullpen.
Brandon Crawford tied the game with an opposite field solo shot off Bumgarner in the fourth. The Oracle Park cried “M-V-P,” and it wasn’t for the 2014 NLCS and World Series Most Valuable Player.
Arizona again took a lead with a run in the top of the fifth, but then Posey responded. Matt Cain, the only other three-time World Series champion in the ballpark, watched the veteran catcher rip an RBI double off his former co-staff member to tie the game again.
Each team went scoreless from the sixth through the eighth innings, but then Diamondbacks closer Joe Mantiply took the rubber for the ninth. Wade Jr. stepped into the batter’s box at 10:09, and teammates were splashing water on him and mobbing him by 10:14.
Bumgarner’s team took the 5-4 loss.
In 2010, Bumgarner became the youngest Giants pitcher to start and win a playoff game at age 20. Now at 31, he’s in the second year of a five-year $85 million mega deal Farhan Zaidi and the Giants were unwilling to offer.
So far, Zaidi and the front office look vindicated. Bumgarner posted a career-high 6.48 ERA in 2020, with his four-seam fastball down from 91.4 to 88.4 mph. He’s rebounded this year, both in velocity and effectiveness, but isn’t nearly the same pitcher that went to four straight All-Star games.
And Arizona’s diminishing returns showed in Bumgarner’s long-awaited return. Meanwhile, the Giants could win a franchise record 108 wins with a weekend sweep. But whether the Giants will miss a pitcher like Bumgarner in the playoffs remains to be seen.