San Francisco Giants Morning Minute: Bum Dominates, plus Tidbit from First Half

On this edition of the San Francisco Giants Morning Minute, we discuss another dominating start from Bumgarner, and first half facts and tidbits.

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Good morning, San Francisco Giants’ fans, and welcome to the final Giants Morning Minute of the (unofficial) first half. On Sunday, the Giants finished off a sweep of the Arizona Diamondbacks with a 4-0 win. Madison Bumgarner earned his 10th win (and oh boy, is there a lot to talk about there), while Archie Bradley was on the losing side.

The Los Angeles Dodgers also won on Sunday, beating the San Diego Padres 3-1 for their third straight victory. They will go into the break 6.5 games behind the Giants. The Colorado Rockies (40-48) are third, 16 games back. The San Diego Padres (38-51) are fourth, 18.5 games back. The Diamondbacks (38-52) are last, 19 games back.

1 – Bumgarner Flirts Again

It’s been said time and time again that a no-hitter is in Madison Bumgarner’s future. The future appeared to be Sunday night.

Bumgarner was perfect through four innings against the Diamondbacks, but allowed the first baserunner to reach with two outs in the fifth inning. Jake Lamb lofted a flyball into right field (the first ball that was hit out of the infield) and Gregor Blanco lost it in the sun, letting it clank off his glove and fall. Bumgarner picked his teammate up by ending the inning with a strikeout, his 10th of the night.

The sixth and the seventh innings were perfect. Yasmany Tomas struck out to begin the eighth, giving Bumgarner his career-high-tying 14th strikeout. And then it was Lamb again, and he broke up the no-hitter by lining a cutter into right field. Just like that, Bumgarner’s bid to etch his name in the record books was over. He would finish the inning with a groundball double play, and finish off the ninth as well to complete his first shutout of the season, and the fourth one-hit shutout of his career.

Bumgarner made one real mistake on Sunday. The cutter to Lamb caught way too much of the plate, and Lamb, a very good hitter even with his struggles against lefties, took advantage. One mistake is all it takes to wipe that zero off the board.

But in terms of overall stuff, that may have been the best he has ever looked, postseason included. His curveball was wonderfully unhittable, as it consistently danced around the bats of hitter after hitter after hitter. Nine strikeouts came from that curveball, and when Posey put down the sign for the Old Uncle Charlie, Diamondbacks’ hitters didn’t stand a chance.

This young man is still 26 years old. It’s incredibly easy to forget that. He’s pitching in his eighth big league season, is five wins away from 100 in his career, is going to his fourth straight All-Star game, and can fit World Series rings on 60 percent of the fingers on his pitching hand.

In baseball terms, he’s still just a young pup. But he’s the big dog on AT&T Park’s mound.