6th Grade Girl Shuts Down Rangers Lineup

Quick Quiz Quesion:

A few years ago Bumgarner
was on High School All-Star
teams, now he's winning games
in the World Series. 

Madison Bumgarner is: 

A) A 6th grade girl

B) A major league pitcher with a 2.18 ERA in 20 2/3 innings in the postseason 


If you asked this question several months ago, even a casual baseball fan would have guessed the answer was A.  After last nights game, the game in which Bumgarner thew 8 scoreless innings to give the San Francisco Giants a 3-1 series lead, most people would now choose...well still A, but you get the point: Madison Bumgarner is good.

It's surprising that a 21 year old rookie, the 5th youngest kid to start a World Series game, did this well.

It's even more surprising that it's this pitcher, you know the pitcher who in March was considered a future "bust" after his velocity was down did this well.

The pitcher who fantasy sites told you not to target.

The pitcher people suspected was hurt.

I'm not saying that these concerns were misplaced, any pitcher's decrease in velocity is a major concern.   If you look at his velocity chart on FanGraphs you can see that it's been a long process getting back to throwing mid 90's rather than mid-high 80's:

The writers were correct to wonder what was going on, and the Giants were correct to not freak out, tweak a few mechanical flaws and watch their top pitching prospect deliver.  Still, it's a surprise that he's not only found his velocity, but has maintained it in the World Series where he's thrown more innings than he has in his entire life. 

What's interesting now will be how they react to a new starter facing velocity concerns, Jonathan Sanchez, he who is scheduled to start game 7, if necessary.  It has been said that during this offseason Madison Bumgarner had some personal issues to deal with including the loss of a family member and a marriage.  Both fully reasonable justifications to fall behind on your off-season preparation and therefore have a decreased velocity.  That's a completely different "loss of velocity story" compared to Jonathan Sanchez, who has now shown a recent velocity decrease coinciding with an increase in workload.  His previous career high innings pitched was 163 1/3, this year including the playoffs he has now thrown 213 innings.  

In his last 2 starts Sanchez hasn't reached the 5th inning and has given up a run for each inning he's pitched.  That has corresponded with a decrease in velocity essentially meaning it wasn't just dumb luck, and the Giants would have to be damn lucky to have Sanchez find those lost MPH to give you them solid start if this series makes it to 7 games. 

I'm not sure if that means the Giants should start Madison Bumgarner, a 21 year old on 3-days rest who himself has thrown 50+ more innings than he has at any point in his career, in lieu of Sanchez but they certainly don't have the benefit of time on their hands in this case like they did with Bumgarner in March to wait and see how it plays out.  What that Giants could do is win tomorrow and then worry about all of this in March, again.