It just wasn't fair.
In the bottom of the 5th inning of the final baseball game of the season, San Francisco's manager Bruce Bochy put Madison Bumgarner into the game. These things are attempted in baseball – calling on a starting pitcher who'd thrown 9 innings three days prior instead of a core of relief pitchers whose job it is to come into a game and prevent the other team from scoring.
They don't always work, but when it comes to Bumgarner, the gamble had better odds than most. And in the end, the move proved genius. MadBum, as he's called, threw five scoreless innings and preserved a 3-2 lead against the Kansas City Royals. The Giants won the World Series and Bumgarner was named series MVP.
Here's a look at why Bumgarner's post-season performance puts him at the pinnacle of baseball legend.
0.25
Earned run average is the key metric baseball uses to identify how good a pitcher is. ERA is the mean of earned runs given up by a pitcher per nine innings pitched, so the lower a pitcher’s ERA, the better. Bumgarner’s World Series ERA (he’s been in three World Series and has pitched in five games) is 0.25. He’s given up 1 run in 36 innings in the World Series, fewer than anyone else in World Series history.
124
In the five World Series games Bumgarner has pitched, he’s faced 124 batters. Of those, only 21 reached base because of a hit, a walk or a hit by pitch.
2
Most impressive, on Wednesday night Bumgarner did it on less rest than a pitcher normally enjoys between outings – just two days rather than the normal four. That matters. Pitching is a finesse talent. A tired shoulder, not to mention sore back or exhausted legs, can have an effect on a pitcher’s velocity and ability to throw a ball where they want to. Bumgarner threw five shutout innings in Game 7, nine shutout innings in Game 5 three days earlier, and seven innings in Game 1 in which he gave up 1 run in a 7-1 victory. Bumgarner threw nearly five innings more than the rest of the starting rotation – Jake Peavy, Tim Hudson and Ryan Vogelsong – combined. The guy would put a workhorse to shame.
52 2/3
Bumgarner pitched 52 2/3 innings in the 2014 postseason (after throwing more than 200 innings in the regular season). Curt Schilling held the record of 48 1/3 set in 2001.
The Matty Score
To add some perspective to Bumgarner’s World Series performance, David Leonhardt of the New York Times TheUpshot blog created the Matty Score, an index meant to rank baseball’s greatest World Series pitchers. The Matty Score (named after Christy Mathewson who pitched 101⅔ World Series innings between 1900 and 1918) is calculated, according to Leonhardt, by taking a pitcher’s career innings pitched in the World Series and subtracting three times his earned runs allowed.
After his World Series performance, Bumgarner ranked third on TheUpshot’s list behind Mathewson (whose last game was nearly 100 years ago) and Dodger great Sandy Koufax, who pitched 57 World Series innings between 1955 and 1966.
Of course, considering Bumgarner is only 25, that list might change again.