Kuzul

Two-and-a-half seasons into his professional career, Madison Bumgarner is already established as one of the game's premiere pitchers. He'll slot in behind ace Matt Cain and in front of two-time Cy Young award winner Tim Lincecum in the San Francisco Giants' rotation to open this season.The 23-year-old lefty has already thrown 534 regular-season innings and signed a long-term contract extension that will keep him at the top of the rotation with Cain through at least 2017. Listed at 6'5" and 227 pounds, the big Southerner is built to continue to eat 200 innings every season for the foreseeable future.To be an ace, a starting pitcher must be able to do these five things: throw strikes (control), throw quality pitches within the zone (command), miss bats, keep the ball in the park and get opposite-handed hitters out. Bumgarner has shown that he can do all of those things thus far in ...

The San Francisco Giants have been known for their pitching for a long time. But this year, the staff has regressed a bit.All five pitchers have gone through rough patches this year, some longer than others. Even Matt Cain, he of the perfect game, 15-5 record and 2.86 ERA, has had his struggles. Madison Bumgarner has too, and Tim Lincecum has had a rough year overall.However, despite all of that, the Giants are still 10 games ahead of the second-place Dodgers in the NL West and 25 games over .500. And, their pitching rotation is still dangerous. But what would make it more dangerous?Arranging the postseason rotation the right way.Here is my blueprint for what the Giants' playoff rotation should look like.Begin Slideshow

After Madison Bumgarner out-dueled the reigning Cy Young Award winner Clayton Kershaw Monday night on national television, he threw his name back into consideration for taking the award home himself this year.The Bumgarner vs. Kershaw matchup between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers was sure to be a low-scoring game, but no one anticipated it to be one for the record books.The two southpaws are considered to be the top left-handed pitchers in the NL, and they proved why after becoming the third pair of pitchers in the live-ball era to each strike out 10 batters and walk none.It was truly magnificent to watch both of these lefties carve through the opposition. Kershaw was buckling knees all night with his devastating curveball, and Bumgarner was matching him by running his cutter in on the hands of righties—which prevented them from making solid contact all night. While both of these ...

With his five-hit complete game against the Washington Nationals Tuesday night, Madison Bumgarner extended his quality starts streak to seven. In 16 of his 24 starts this season he’s allowed two runs or less. And here’s another mind-bender: He’s walked more than two batters in an outing just once all year.This is the kind of consistency that warrants ace status. And whether or not Bumgarner gets the credit he deserves, he’s already at that level.Since his major-league debut in 2009 (he logged only 10 innings with the Giants that year), Bumgarner has the 11th-best ERA (3.05) and 10th-best FIP (3.17) among qualified starters. Of the pitchers ahead of him on those lists, the only walk-rate better than Bumgarner’s (1.97) is that of Roy Halladay (1.27), and the only strikeout rates better than Bumgarner’s (8.04) are those of Clayton Kershaw (9.36), Justin Verlander (9.21), Josh Johnson (8.43) and Adam Wainwright (8.31).Since ...

Madison Bumgarner (11-5) opened up the second half of the season for the San Francisco Giants on Friday night with a solid performance, holding the Houston Astros to just one run over seven innings while striking out five in the Giants' 5-1 win.  In command from the beginning, Bumgarner had a one-hit shutout through six. With Chris Snyder up and two out in the seventh, Bumgarner made his only mistake of the night.  On a 3-1 count, Bumgarner threw a fastball that caught too much of the plate. The Astros catcher turned on it and drove a towering home run over the left field wall.  That was one of two hits Bumgarner would surrender and the only run as he lowered his ERA to 3.15. The 22-year-old earned his 11th win of the year and has now won 15 of his last 18 starts at AT&T Park ...

Madison Bumgarner is turning into an absolute monster on the hill for the San Francisco Giants. However, Bumgarner rarely gets the credit he deserves. The big lefty deserves to be mentioned with the best pitchers in baseball right now.Thanks to the Giants having Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, Bumgarner is left out of the spotlight. The two aces are not the only factors in the reasoning of Bumgarner being so underrated.The young gun is one of the best pitchers in all of baseball, and is the most underrated pitcher in all of baseball.Begin Slideshow

Just in case you've hibernated for the past two years, let me update you on the Giants' pitching.Jonathan Sanchez is no longer a Giant. Ryan Vogelsong has stepped in and pitched very well. Barry Zito is playing well. Brian Wilson has a beard, Sergio Romo does too, and Javier Lopez was traded to the Giants and he has played very well.Oh, and there's also this other guy named Madison Bumgarner, and he's pretty good.Bumgarner stepped in during June 2010, and he played well throughout the regular season. He was good enough to earn a starting spot in the playoffs, where he went 2-0 and pitched in four games (all won by the Giants).In 2011, he was great, and in 2012, he's played well too. Although he is only 6-4, his ERA is just above 3.00, and he has anchored San Francisco's staff. With San Francisco's offense improving, so should Bumgarner's stats.Bumgarner ...

It's like choosing which of your children is most expendable. Nobody wants to ask the question, and for sure nobody wants to answer it. However, the 2011 San Francisco Giants' offensive woes were such that many Giants fans were ready to sell their first born in exchange for a hitter. Ok, not quite, but two runs per game for long stretches will make people do crazy things.  However, management seems intent on sticking to a strict budget this winter, and the stated top priority is to lock down the pitching staff for the future. Meanwhile, the plan for improving the offense seems to be: 1) hope Buster Posey stays healthy and hits; 2) Hope Freddy Sanchez stays healthy and hits; 3) Hope Brandon Crawford learns how to hit, and 4) throw some extra pennies in the fountain at the mall. But what if there were a better solution? What if that solution ...

I think people are starting to get the idea. If you don’t get the idea yet, then you are either an exceptionally optimistic fan, or delusional. The San Francisco Giants are not a good baseball team. Perhaps they were at one point in the season. Perhaps they were until the acquisition of Carlos Beltran. But they certainly aren’t now. Granted, they have extraordinary pitching. Ryan Vogelsong threw seven innings of two earned-run ball, and remains second in the league in ERA. The key word in the previous sentence is earned. Errors by Mark DeRosa and Nate Schierholtz enabled the Houston Astros to score three unearned runs off of Vogelsong. Guillermo Mota’s bogus home run to Bogusevic extended the lead to 6-0, which turned out to be the final score of the ballgame. Realistically, though, it wouldn’t have mattered if Vogelsong had pitched a shutout—he still would have received a no ...

                                   2011 SF Giants Season Preview   It is a good time to be a San Francisco Giants fan. Great even. The Gigantes are fresh off an improbable World Series championship, the farm system is a veritable horn-o-plenty in comparison to recent  history, and leading the way is arguably the best starting rotation in baseball—that's right Philadelphia, I went there.   But with the start of a new season, anything is possible, and new questions are raised. Will the Giants training staff find a way to resurrect the corpse of Aaron Rowand? Will Barry Zito be a serviceable fifth starter, or will he be released by the Giants and banished to a baseball purgatory like Baltimore or Kansas City to finish out his career? Is Buster Posey in fact the baseball Messiah?   The (possible) answers to these questions, and more ...