Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants held off the Kansas City Royals in Game 7 to clinch their third World Series in the past five years.

 

Bumgarner had one of the finest October performances in baseball history.  Bumgarner posted a 4-1 record, struck out 45 batters, tossed two complete game shutouts (one in the World Series, one save (Game 7 of WS) and posted a 1.03 ERA for the postseason.

 

Just to put it into prospective a little, only one other starting pitcher reached the ninth inning in the postseason, Jordan Zimmerman, and he was pulled before finishing the game. Bumgarner did it twice, shutting out the Pirates in the Wild Card and then shutting out the Royals in Games 5.

 

Bumgarner, coming off a Game 5 shutout of the Royals, was called upon in the fifth inning of the Game 7 to try and hold onto the Giants 3-2 lead, and my goodness did he.

 

Coming off just two days rest Bumgarner pitched five masterful innings in relief allowing just two hits, retired 14 in a row and got 15 outs.

 

One of the two hits came with two outs in the ninth inning when Alex Gordon lined a single that was miss played by Gregor Blanco allowing Gordon to get to third base as the potential tying run.  The hit didn’t faze Bumgarner a bit as he got Salvador Perez to pop up a 2-2 pitch into foul ground outside of third base, where Pablo “Kung Fu Panda” Sandoval made a surefire, two-handed catch to seal the Game 7 victory.

 

For his outstanding performance Bumgarner was awarded the World Series MVP.