By Jeremy Harness

Madison Bumgarner made sure that at least one Bay Area baseball team held on to a big lead in a playoff game.

A night after the A’s suffered a massive collapse in the American League wild-card game, the Giants stomped all over the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League’s play-in, 8-0, at PNC Park.

Bumgarner had all his stuff working all night long, and that left the Pirates without any answers and spending all nine innings chasing his pitches to no avail. In all, the big lefty surrendered only four hits and one walk while amassing 10 strikeouts in a thoroughly-dominant complete-game gem.

The Giants will now head to Washington to face the National League East champion Nationals in the five-game Division Series, which starts Friday.

“Nothing special, just trying to make pitches,” Bumgarner said. “Last time against those guys, I didn’t do a good job of that. I was behind in the count a lot, putting those guys in a lot of good situations to hit in. (Wednesday) night, we were able to get ahead and make pitches.”

In the top of the fourth, the Giants loaded the bases with nobody out against Pittsburgh starter Edinson Volquez, before the right-hander hung a breaking ball in front of the plate to shortstop Brandon Crawford.

Crawford didn’t miss it, and he sent the mistake into the first few rows of the right-field bleachers to become the first shortstop in MLB history to hit a grand slam in the postseason and give the Giants an instant 4-0 lead, and all the runs that Bumgarner needed.

At the same time, the blow sucked the life right out of the once-lively crowd at PNC Park, and it was never the same again.

The only other real noise the crowd generated was in the eighth inning, as the Pirates got a small ally going against Bumgarner, which he quickly extinguished to bring the audience back down.

“With all the great shortstops that have played before, that’s pretty special,” Crawford said. “I’m happy to be able to do it.

“The last thing on my mind was probably hitting the home run,” he continued. “I was just trying to hit something good enough to get Pablo (Sandoval) home (from third base). I figured that would be good enough for Madison.

It certainly was, and Bumgarner took it from there.

Meanwhile, Volquez lasted only five-plus innings while giving up five runs on five hits, and it only got worse for the Pirates from that point on.

After scoring another run off Volquez in the sixth, the Giants taxed Pittsburgh’s bullpen for two more runs in the seventh and one more in the eighth. By that time, most who had occupied the luxury seats behind the plate were long gone, never to return.