When they shoot Field of Dreams II, and it’s inevitably based on Madison Bumgarner’s straight-to-DVD, hackishly unbelievable real life, they’ll probably model the Big Game after the performance he had Sunday.
Bumgarner pitched, hit and then hit some more, tying his career high with 14 strikeouts and pouring on a home run and RBI double over the course of a 5-0 shutout against the Washington Nationals.
The San Francisco Giants ace/bearded plowshare began laying lumber in the bottom of the fifth, hitting a Michael Doublé to right field that scored Kelby Tomlinson.
He would follow it up later with a shot (the 10th homer of his career) off Casey Janssen over the the left field wall in the bottom of the seventh.
Oh, and Bumgarner also snagged a driven comebacker to the mound like it was a Wiffle ball, because when you’re a real-life character from Oregon Trail, speeding baseballs hold no fear for you:
Yeah. It was that type of day for MadBum.
“[Bumgarner] did it all,” said Giants manager Bruce Bochy, per the Associated Press, via ESPN.com. “That was an old-school type game; starter goes nine was fitting. Marichal did it so many times. Bumgarner, that’s back-to-back for him.”
Bochy was referring to Juan Marichal, the Giants’ former Dominican ace whose Hall of Fame career the team honored before Sunday’s game.
A right-hander with a penchant for making use of his plate appearances, Marichal was the only Giants pitcher in franchise history prior to Sunday who had thrown a shutout, struck out at least 10 and hit a home run in the same game, per the AP.
Then Bumgarner came along, and with the kind of corny, cinematic timing only he can breathe into existence, joined Marichal—on Marichal’s honorary day—with a likewise exhibition of offensive and defensive dominance.
The Giants went on to win the game 5-0, extending Washington’s losing streak to six games and improving to 64-53 on the season. Just when Harper and company hoped to turn around their skid, they ran into MadBum in full Paul-Bunyan-clear-cut-the-entire-forest mode.
The only thing Bumgarner didn’t do over the course of his fairy tale outing was crush one into the stadium lights and ride an ox around the base path as sparks fell.
But give it time. He’s only 26.
Dan is on Twitter. Build an artificial steer for Bumgarner to rope and he will come.
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