Stanton has his moment, but Bumgarner laughs last
MIAMI — Giancarlo Stanton loves to face Madison Bumgarner. That’s no knock on Bumgarner, because Stanton loves to face anyone standing on a dirt hill that’s 10 inches high and 60 feet, 6 inches away.
Likewise, Bumgarner loves to face Stanton, if only because Stanton is the biggest and baddest dude in the room.
The two faced each other in Tuesday night’s 9-4 Giants victory, each celebrated player wanting to one-up the other, each wanting mano a mano bragging rights.
Both were on hot streaks coming into the game, though Stanton’s was a bit hotter — and still is. He lined a single in his first at-bat and smashed a home run in his second, the sixth straight game in which he has homered.
“It’s fun to go against guys like that,” Bumgarner said, “especially guys who are locked in as he is.”
Stanton’s 44th homer leads the majors by far. He has 11 homers in August and 23 in his past 35 games. Sixty is within his reach, and nobody has done that since Barry Bonds and Sammy Sosa in 2001.
Why not walk him? This is Bumgarner we’re talking about. Not Ty Blach, who gave up a Stanton homer in Monday’s opener. Plus, the first two times Stanton stepped to the plate, the Marlins had one out and nobody on. Bumgarner was going after him.
“It was a matchup a lot of baseball fans and us in the game look forward to,” manager Bruce Bochy said. “Bum isn’t going to back down.”
Bumgarner got his man in the fifth when Stanton swung through an 81-mph curve, the first of three straight K’s for Bumgarner. The others: Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich.
At the plate, Bumgarner lined a wicked single off the left-field wall but got picked off second base. Bochy made light of the play, saying, “He was like a Clydesdale getting back, wasn’t he?”
Asked if he needs to work on his secondary leads, Bumgarner quipped, “I guess work on not getting one.”
Stanton has great career numbers against Bumgarner. In fact, no one with at least 14 at-bats against him has a higher slugging percentage than Stanton’s 1.105. He’s 10-for-19 with two homers and five doubles.
Imagine if those two men were teammates next season. Stanton reportedly cleared waivers, meaning he can be traded to any team so long as he waives his no-trade clause.
His $325 million contract is a red flag, but let it be known that Giants executives Bobby Evans and Jeremy Shelley had a lengthy pregame conversation near the Giants’ dugout with Michael Hill, the Marlins’ president of baseball operations.
If Stanton’s name was mentioned, it wouldn’t have been the first time in talks between the teams. With the new Derek Jeter ownership group, one of the biggest decisions is whether to move Stanton’s contract off the books, and the Giants can’t be faulted for wanting to keep in touch.
“That guy’s unreal, man,” Denard Span said of Stanton. “I might try his batting (style) next year, the opposite scissors kick. He’s locked in right now. I was in this division three years, and I’ve never seen him locked in like this. He’s on everything.”
Span had three of the Giants’ 14 hits and one of their two home runs, along with rookie Ryder Jones, who also doubled.
The momentum-changing inning was the Giants’ threerun seventh that turned a 4-3 deficit into a 6-4 lead. Carlos Moncrief, hitting for Bumgarner, singled home a run, and his aggressive baserunning — going from first to third on Span’s single to right — led to an errant Stanton throw that enabled Moncrief to score.
Hunter Pence doubled home the third run. The offensive surge got Bumgarner, who gave up four runs on nine hits in six innings, the win.
“I think that was the play of the game,” Span said of Moncrief ’s baserunning. “It seemed it woke everybody up.”