Bumgarner’s struggles continue in Tuesday loss

Diamondbacks left-hander Madison Bumgarner turned toward home plate and motioned for a new baseball. The one he had just thrown had not yet landed, but Bumgarner did not need to watch it to know he would need another.

Matt Champan’s no-doubt blast landed in the left-field seats and punctuated another miserable night for the Diamondbacks and their high-priced pitcher, who lost, 9-5, to the Oakland Athletics at Chase Field.

“It was not very good,” Bumgarner said. “I’ve got to give us a lot better chance than I did — than I have been doing.”

For 11 seasons with the San Francisco Giants, Bumgarner earned a reputation as perhaps the best big-game pitcher of a generation. He helped the Giants win three championships. He fashioned a sort of mythical status.

Nothing has come easy since joining the Diamondbacks — including trying to articulate his struggles. Sitting in front of a camera for a video interview with reporters after the game, Bumgarner wore a hat pulled down over his head. His tone was somber.

“I wish I had the words to tell you that for myself,” he said. “But I don’t have them. I don’t know what to say. ‘Extremely frustrating’ is not — that don’t do it justice.”

For stretches on Monday, it was possible to view Bumgarner’s outing as an improvement over his first two. He collected swings and misses. He was hurt by his defense — and perhaps by the strike zone.

But a fifth-inning implosion that was helped along by a Bumgarner throwing error made any justifications harder to employ. And it made the final line — six runs in 4 1⁄3 innings — blend into the tapestry of Bumgarner’s previous starts over the past year.

He has made 12 of them since the Diamondbacks gave him a five-year, $85 million deal in December 2019. In 551⁄3 innings, he has posted a 7.64 ERA and allowed 16 home runs.

Bumgarner’s struggles last year came with a caveat. His stuff was down, the result perhaps of the pandemic-forced shutdown, and the Diamondbacks always had hope — belief, even — that with a normal spring and a normal ramp-up to a normal season, Bumgarner would look like his normal self.

And that is what makes his first three starts this year all the more alarming. His stuff has, in fact, ticked up — at least somewhat. The results have not come along with it.

Bumgarner said Monday night his stuff is “probably somewhere in between” where it was last year and where it needs to be, and he sounded like he was out of ideas as to how to rediscover it.