by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

ALAMEDA–Although San Francisco Giant Madison Bumgarner wasn’t the best pitcher in the Majors in 2014. The Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kernshaw won the Cy Young Award for the National League and he also won the Most Valuable Player Award. Having said that Bumgarner may not have been the best pitcher in baseball in the regular season but he did something in post season worthy of winning the Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year Award.

In the World Series he either won or led his team to a win in the series three times and finished the series with a 1.03 ERA. He pitched when the pressure was on and what he did was not seen in my generation and maybe two generations behind me having not seen one pitcher be a huge factor in three World Series games to lead the team.

Those three unforgettable appearances he had in Kansas City was stuff of legend and even though Bumgarner was not the best pitcher in all of baseball from April to September he put on his Superman cape on in October and was a monster pitcher and without him the Giants could not have won their third World Series in the last five years.

I agree Bumgarner is the Sportsman of the Year and the athletes are subjective to all sorts of sporting awards when selected by the media. I agree to this one, Bumgarner deserved every bit of this award he can savor it this winter until spring training. When Bumgarner came on as a reliever in the seventh game of the series against Kansas City and won it that clinched the award for him and he’s not a reliever by the way.

A good reliever in those situations when the starter gets replaced can make all the difference but when that reliever is a starter like Bumgarner that’s why the Royal fans were silent when Mad Bum came out in the seventh game. I challenge anybody to go and look at that film when Bumgarner came out of the bullpen and when the P.A. announcer introduced Bumgarner to relieve you couldn’t hear a pin drop as fans were in a state of shock. The Kansas City Royal fans just couldn’t believe that Bumgarner was coming out to relieve.

Future of Harbaugh and players in question after losing in Oakland: The San Francisco 49ers locker room was depressed after the 24-13 loss at the Oakland Coliseum. It’s a loss a lot of people will remember for a long time, they looked awful dropping this game to the Oakland Raiders. I don’t want to take any credit from the Raiders who were coming off a 52-0 loss to St.Louis the previous Sunday.

The 49ers had nothing and Kaepernick was really asleep at the wheel he was a disaster in this game he was throwing to the sidelines and he was not the same Kaepernick that he was in the last few years. Then there is this soap opera with head coach Jim Harbaugh, Harbaugh will be gone after the season is over. It doesn’t look like the 49ers are going to keep him, the 49ers have a lot of problems.

On the other side the Raiders are very happy with quarterback Derrick Carr. I always liked this kid since the first day. Last Sunday was his best game of the season, Carr threw for three touchdown passes against the 49ers and granted he didn’t get a lot of pressure from the 49ers but still the Raiders got what they wanted accomplished “Just win Baby.”

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the Spanish radio voice for Oakland A’s baseball and does News and Commentary each week for http://www.sportsradioservice.com