Peter Gammons Royals Giants will KC have the last word

Peter Gammons: Bumgarner stars in this October’s script, but can the Royals write the final chapter?

October 27, 2014 by Peter Gammons 0 Comments

SAN FRANCISCO—It all began four weeks ago, a post-season written with an introduction: the Kansas City Royals coming from four runs down against Jon Lester to beat the Oakland Athletics in one play-in game, followed the next night by a Madison Bumgarner complete game shutout in Pittsburgh.
And now, here we are, with either one or two games left. The Royals have run 13 wins in 16 games, their Kelvin Herrera/Wade Davis/Greg Holland troika closing emotional, athletic, defensive dramas so emphatically that they have drawn comparisons to the best bullpens ever seen on an October stage.
The Giants have won 11 games, playing exceptionally well in pursuit of their third ring in five years, riding one great 25 year old pitcher on one of those trips that has evoked the memories of Sandy Koufax, Orel Hershiser, Randy Johnson, Curt Schilling and even Bob Gibson. While on the one hand the Royals are two wins away because of the totality of their roster, the Giants are one win away because this, indeed, is what an ace can do.
An ace not named Max Scherzer or Lester or Adam Wainwright or Jordan Zimmermann or James Shields, but Madison Bumgarner. Zimmermann deserves mention, because he is one of two starters who has thrown a pitch in the ninth inning this post-season. Bumgarner, of course, has thrown two complete game shutouts.
This is a man who has four World Series starts and four wins, most ever for a pitcher before his 26^th birthday. In those four starts, he has allowed one run and 12 hits in 31 innings.
In this post-season, he has made six starts, compiled a 1.13 ERA in 47 2/3 innings. Only Hershiser in 1988 and Schilling in 2001 had better earned run averages in 40 or more innings. “Will,” says Bruce Bochy. “MadBum has incredible will.”
“He does not take no for an answer,” says Jake Peavy. “When he’s on the mound, he’s the toughest guy on the field.” Yes, privately, they’d had loved to see what would have happened if Yasiel Puig had actually charged the mound. When Bochy hedged Friday about whether he might start Bumgarner in Game Four for a 1-4-7 scenario, one teammate said Bumgarner never doubted he would do it. No issues. No doubt. “He’d start all seven games if they wanted,” said one teammate. “And it’s never about him. It’s always about team.” Then you think that greats like Ted Williams, Carl Yastrzemski and Don Mattingly never got rings, and this 25 year old Kodiak from North Carolina is close to his third at the age of 25, with a couple of guys named Jake Peavy and Tim Hudson dying to close it all out.
Sunday night was seemingly never an issue. Bloop single with two out in the first inning. Punched out the side in the second. By the sixth inning, it was 2-0 that seemed like it was 8-0 back in Pittsburgh on October 1. Then when the Giants scored three times in the seventh, it was like Tom Brady taking a knee. Ten pitch ninth. Good night.
Obviously, this is not merely Bumgarner’s month. Hunter Pence, Pablo Sandoval and Buster Posey have been enormous contributors, offensively and defensively. The double play combination of Brandon Crawford and Joe (Widespread) Panik are a demo for the Giants instructional film. Gregor Blanco has played a marvelous center field, and Brandon Belt keeps popping up in key moments.
But Madison Bumgarner has not only helped write this October’s script, he wins the Oscar for best actor. There is calm in the man, there is ferocity, there is will, and the only way anything can be taken away from him is if the Royals get back into The K and three guys named Herrera, Davis and Holland put a choke hold on a couple of sixth inning leads.
For four weeks, that’s what it’s been about, and be they the 1985 Royals or the 1958 Yankees, we have history to prove that we do not know how this ends.