by Jeremy Harness

SAN FRANCISCO–The loss by San Francisco Giant pitcher Madison Bumgarner in Tuesday’s 3-2 decision to the San Diego Padres in 11 innings was almost like his loss to the Seattle Mariners and pitcher King Felix Hernandez who threw a great game and only gave up no runs, struck out eight hitters, and walked only two against the Mariners.

The problem was Bumgarner gave up two runs, the difference was the Mariners scored the two runs off Mad Bum and the Giants couldn’t do anything off King Felix. There aren’t a lot of teams who get many runs off Hernandez anyways, every now and then Hernandez would have a blip or a bump in the road. Otherwise Bumgarner is as dominate as any pitcher there is in the big leagues.

Bumgarner on Tuesday threw and got 14 strikeouts but suffered that tough luck extra inning loss no doubt he had his stuff going. He threw a lot of pitches and he had a lot of his good stuff going. It’s always encouraging when you have that kind of arsenal. It’s kind of a funny thing with pitchers and the way you get outs is that you get strikeouts their flashy and they definitely look good on a stat sheet but what saves a pitcher’s bacon is getting a lot of ground outs.

The ground out is handy because it gets the fielders the ball and it gets your fielders involved in the game. In the movie Bull Durham Crash Davis said, “strikeouts are boring plus their fascist throw some more ground balls it’s a little more democratic.” Also with Giants right handed relief pitcher Jean Machi returning off the 15 day DL it’s also a relief for the Giants bullpen. The Giants not only for their left hand pitchers but the right hand core has to be relieved to have Machi back.

Machi needs to get things going coming back with a record of 1-0 ERS 5.47 he was great last year for the Giants in his current role. In the post season Machi completely went into the tank and they weren’t able to use him on a regular basis. He needs to do some things to get back on track and now is the time to do it if your Machi.

Nori Akoi who is on the 15 day DL with a fractured right fibula has had such an amazing season, hitting .317 two home runs, 33 runs, 83 hits, and 19 RBIs. He has better than average speed as scouts have reported and he puts the ball on the ground in a ball park that he calls home at AT&T. This ball park is not made for home runs. The only guy that the Giants had picked up that hit home runs on a regular basis at AT&T was former outfielder Barry Bonds and that’s pretty self explanatory.

Jeremy Harness is a San Francisco Giants beat writer at http://www.sportsradioservice.com listen to the podcast below