In a game in which he was the starting pitcher, the Giants lost. At the end of the day, that’s all that really concerns Madison Bumgarner.
Even though things didn’t go the way he had hoped in the Giants 5-2 loss to the San Diego Padres, the Giants’ ace knows that there’s nothing else he can do besides looking ahead to his next start.
“What else are you going to do?” Bumgarner said following the game. “It’s frustrating, but [moving on] is the only way to combat it.”
Pitching in the series opener against the Padres, Bumgarner went six innings, allowing four earned runs on six hits, to go with five strikeouts and one walk.
After a dirt bike accident in mid-April that caused Bumgarner to miss nearly three months, the lefty returned to the big league club following the All-Star break on Saturday in San Diego. In seven innings of work, two Padres’ home runs brought in three runs.
That makes Thursday’s loss all the more frustrating for the 27-year-old. Going up against these same Padres, Bumgarner allowed all four of his runs on – you guessed it – the long ball. Hunter Renfroe took him deep in the second inning with a two-run shot and Cory Spangenberg knocked him out of the game in the seventh inning with another two-run homer toward Triples’ Alley.
On Saturday, Bumgarner got a no decision. But on Thursday, he took the loss.
“You look at the numbers, they weren’t great but he threw the ball well,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “A couple mistakes in each game that left the ballpark.”
It marks the first time Bumgarner has allowed multiple home runs in back-to-back starts in a single season. Three of the four home runs he has given up against the Padres have come off of his curveball.
“I feel [the curveball] is pretty good. Maybe the command is not as good, but the pitch itself is pretty good,” Bumgarner said. “For whatever reason, it hasn’t worked in the last two starts.”
In his six starts this season, Bumgarner has yet to record a win. It’s far from being the sole reason why the Giants sit at 37-60, but it surely doesn’t help when your ace has a goose egg in the win column.
There’s nothing Bumgarner can do, however, to erase what has transpired thus far in the 2017 season. Even with the team already out of the playoff hunt, Bumgarner knows there is still plenty of time left in the season to gather some momentum.
“There’s no magic solution,” Bumgarner said. “I felt much better than what the box score said.”
There will come a time, one thinks, where the box score will match how good Bumgarner feels on the mound. While Bumgarner works to find that on a consistent basis, the Giants will continue to get a boost from having the presence of its franchise cornerstone toeing the mound – especially at AT&T Park – once again.
“Its always good to have him back,” Bochy said. “I think it’s encouraging that he’s healthy and he’s throwing the ball, I think, very well.”
In a lost 2017 season for the Giants, the team and its fans will be patient with their ace that has done so much for the organization.
It’s not the type of season Bumgarner could have ever imagined. All he can do now is stick to the process, and hope that the results for himself and team begin to result in more wins and fewer losses.