Ratto: Bumgarner's Young Arm Guided by Old Soul

Oct. 31, 2010RATTO ARCHIVEGIANTS PAGEGIANTS VIDEOMLB POSTSEASONRay Ratto
CSNBayArea.com

ARLINGTON, Texas -- Madison Bumgarner walked out of the interview room and into the tunnel that would return him to the Giants clubhouse when he faced his only moment of true jitters.

The tunnel was lined with members of the Giants extended traveling party, and they spontaneously applauded him as he ambled through the space theyd left for him. He was like a groom without a bride, the center of all attention, but he knew he had to do something, so he took off his hat and held it over his head in the international sign for Is this what you need me to do?

They did. He intuited it. Another moment in the fast-paced, slow-paced, doesnt-get-better-than-this world of M. K. Bumgarner, Reluctant Hero Du Jour.

He threw eight of the most brilliant, simplest, yet most baffling innings in recent World Series history, muffling the Texas Rangers in Game 4, 4-0. The Giants are one win away from bringing down the house and ending the third-longest streak without a title in baseball, and they couldnt have done it without the guy who wasnt good enough to start the season with the men he defended so well this evening.

Brilliant, because he allowed only three hits, started 19 of the 27 hitters he faced with a strike and in general got enough defense and a bit of luck to complete his best start ever.

At age 21.

Most baffling, at least to the Rangers, because there were so few danger points he faced through the evening. Only one hitter, Josh Hamilton, reached second base, and only two leadoff hitters -- Elvis Andrus in the first and the Michael Young in the fourth -- led off by reaching base, and lasted a total of four pitches before being erased on ground balls. Its hard to gauge a mans brilliance when he is challenged so rarely.

And simplest, because he caused nobody any worries at all, at any point. In a pressure-crushed event, a game which would essentially decide the fate of the World Series, Bumgarner was unmoved, untwitched, un-everything. Nobody had to sweat a moment.

Not Buster Posey, his catcher, who never had to convince him to throw anything and only went out once all night to talk to him, and only because were kind of supposed to. I mean, I didnt need to.

Not Dave Righetti, his pitching coach, who recalled only when he threw the 2-0 fastball to Hamilton (Josh, who grounded sharply to Juan Uribe, who couldnt handle it). I wanted to see what hed do, if hed try to overthrow a fastball or something, but he just got back to what hed been doing all night. Slider, changeup, keeping them off balance, running the ball in when he was supposed to. That (Vladimir) Guerrero at-bat went pretty well.

That was a seven-pitch strikeout.

Not Bruce Bochy, who admitted he asked Posey at the end of the eighth how much Bumgarner had left, heard that he wasnt quite as sharp, and quickly opted for Brian Wilson to close the game.

And his other decisions on this night? I didnt have one.

And not even Bumgarner himself, who has somehow trained himself at age 21 not to act like hes, well, 21.

I just keep telling myself to relax, he said, and Ive told myself so much that its starting to become second nature, and it makes it a lot easier on me and on the other players, I think, to see somebody thats relaxed out there throwing. Thats it, I guess.

Yeah, thats it.

It wasnt a perfect night, in fairness. Posey said, The first couple of innings, he yanked a couple of fastballs, but that was about it. And Bumgarners two-pitch retirement of Ian Kinsler to end the seventh bothered him a bit.

I was trying to get the ball up a little bit because I know he can spin on some balls and pull them down the line, he said. Actually, the pitch I threw him that he popped out on wasnt the one I wanted to make, but it worked out all right. It was a changeup that came back over the plate. I was trying to get it away.

Such sloth.

But in an era in which more men than women are willing to drive lost (and studies show that this is true), Bumgarners few moments of aberrant pitching amid such a masterpiece almost stand out as a relief. It shouldnt be this easy, not for a 21-year-old, not for a kid whose spring training was so baffling that he spent the first month and change in Fresno tidying up his mechanics, and most definitely not for a Giant.

Bumgarner actually demolished the T-shirt-exploitable concept of torture, because clinical dissections arent torture at all. They are science, and Bumgarner was as scientific as all hell Sunday night.

The Giants now send Tim Lincecum out to re-negotiate status questions with Cliff Lee Monday evening, with a World Series 27 outs away. Conventional wisdom likes Lee, but conventional wisdom has laughed at the Giants until this series, and has now been reduced to whistling in admiration at the pitching that has brought baseball to its knees.

And if there is a scene that explains it better than Madison Bumgarner sheepishly waving his hat at family, friends and supporters who just watched him smother the best team in the American League, we havent seen it yet.

Ray Ratto is a columnist for Comcast SportsNet Bay Area.