Bumgarner and Giants outlast Mets in wild-card classic
NEW YORK - They play baseball for six months and 162 games because it is most like life. It needs time to breathe, a tedious existence with good days, bad days, and rainy days. It is not designed for nights like Wednesday, inside Citi Field, when two of the game's elite arms clashed in a one-game playoff to begin the National League postseason.
NEW YORK — They play baseball for six months and 162 games because it is most like life. It needs time to breathe, a tedious existence with good days, bad days and rainy days. It is not designed for nights like Wednesday, inside Citi Field, when two of the game's elite arms clashed in a one-game playoff to begin the National League postseason.
If a draft were held of all pitchers in baseball for the purposes of one game, they could have easily began it with Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard. For two hours, they traded brilliance. But, when a 3-0 Giants win over the Mets ended, Bumgarner stood alone on the mound while thousands of New Yorkers cursed his name.
The gruff lefthander is unmatched.
He pitched a shutout, nine innings of the finest October baseball imaginable. No Mets runner reached third base. Bumgarner has permitted one run in his last 47 2/3 innings of road postseason ball. That is a 0.19 ERA.
"I think it's more remarkable what he did tonight," catcher Buster Posey said, "given all of the hype going into the game."
Bumgarner, due to bat in the ninth, was not in the on-deck circle when Conor Gillaspie stepped to the plate. He watched from the Giants dugout when the 29-year-old journeyman Gillaspie — inserted at third base only because reliable Eduardo Nunez had a tight hamstring — crushed a three-run homer to deep right. Yes, Bumgarner could finish his masterpiece.
"These are fun games, but they're pretty stressful at the same time," Bumgarner said. "But it's all in how you prepare and look at it."
There are few ways to look at Bumgarner other than one of the greatest pitchers in postseason history. He owns a 1.94 ERA in 97 postseason innings. It is hard, Giants manager Bruce Bochy said, to have a higher level of confidence in anything than Bumgarner.
"This," Bochy said, "is one of the best postseason games I've been a part of."
Syndergaard, 24, confounded San Francisco's meager lineup with an overpowering fastball, 93-mph sliders and 90-mph change-ups. Bumgarner, 27, fooled the Mets with his pinpoint accuracy from a deceptive arm slot.
It was just the second time in postseason history that both starters went seven innings without a run allowed in a winner-take-all game. Jack Morris and John Smoltz did it in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series, the standard for all postseason pitching duels.
"That's a lot to ask of a kid that's 23 years old to go out there and have to pitch in that and against Bumgarner," Mets manager Terry Collins said. "He rose to the occasion. That's why I think he's going to be very special, because when you can't be a lot better when you're challenged in these situations, and he did a great job."
Both Syndergaard and Bumgarner faced the minimum through three innings. Syndergaard no-hit San Francisco for the game's first five innings. Bumgarner used exactly seven pitches in each of his first three innings. New York, knowing it would see pitches to hit, attacked Bumgarner early in the count. Fall behind Bumgarner, tempt fate. They pushed him in a 28-pitch fourth inning and a 20-pitch fifth inning, but the brusque North Carolinian did not budge.
The closest either team came to scoring in the first seven innings was in the sixth, when Giants first baseman Brandon Belt clobbered a 98-mph sinker to deep center. Curtis Granderson tracked the ball, reached for it, and crashed into the blue wall. He caught a ball that, according to Major League Baseball's Statcast, landed as a hit 97 percent of the time.
The crowd, more than 44,000 on a perfect night, exhaled. But, when the bottom half of the inning commenced, Bumgarner was still there, and he would not relinquish the mound. Not in October.
When it was over, and Bumgarner had chugged some Budweiser, a San Francisco athletic trainer pulled the pitcher from the clubhouse. He wrapped Bumgarner's prized left arm in ice and affixed an egg timer to his chest. As the clock ticked, all Bumgarner could do is wander a hallway in the bowels of Citi Field.
Ryan Devine, a security guard standing near Beer Pump Room No. 4, saw the pitcher pose for a selfie with a nearby police officer. Now, Bumgarner walked toward Devine.
"I called him by his first name," Devine said, "and I thought he'd be mad."
He was not. Bumgarner raised his right arm around Devine and for an image that soon hit Instagram. Devine thanked him. Bumgarner, a living postseason legend that grows with every even-year October, nodded.
@MattGelb