Madison Bumgarner Faces One Over The Minimum In One-Hit, Complete Game Shutout
On May 11, the San Francisco Giants were 18-18. Since then, they’re the best team in baseball, going 40-15, while no other team in the MLB has more than 36 wins over that span. The team who actually does have 36 wins is the Cleveland Indians, who needed a 14-game winning streak to get there. If you asked a baseball fan to give you their MLB power rankings, they’d most likely rank the Chicago Cubs first, right? Well, over that same span that the Giants are the best team in baseball, the Cubs are 28-29.
Guess who started that game for the Giants on May 11, which began their epic run to the top of the MLB. Yup, you guessed it. Madison Bumgarner. Since that game, Bumgarner has a 1.45 ERA with 91 strikeouts in 86.2 innings, while opponents are hitting just .165 against him. But it’s not even like that’s when Bumgarner himself turned it on. That’s just when the Giants, as a team, got it going. Bumgarner has been the best pitcher in baseball not named Clayton Kershaw this season, with the second best ERA in the game at the break (1.94), the second highest WAR (4.0), the second most complete games (3), the third most strikeouts (146), the third best WHIP (0.96), and he has the fifth lowest opponents OPS (.575).
Sunday’s outing was the perfect way to put a stamp on Bumgarner’s first half, throwing a complete game, one-hit shutout against the Arizona Diamondbacks. The left-hander allowed a base hit with one out in the top of the eighth, and walked a batter, but faced just one over the minimum in the Giants’ most recent victory. Bumgarner struck out 14 batters, nine of which he put away with his curveball. This season, Bumgarner has thrown 252 curveballs, and opponents are hitting just .118 with a .331 OPS when they see his deuce.