Madison Bumgarner's playoff performance shows he's truly special

The Giants cared enough to send their very best.

What other way to describe Madison Bumgarner in the World Series?

With their left-handed ace mixing a crackling fastball, a snapping cutter, a sweeping curve and even a surprising, 68-mph yakker, the Giants dealt the Kansas City Royals their first loss of the postseason and took a 7-1 victory in Game 1 of the Fall Classic on Tuesday.

The world’s largest greeting card company is headquartered here. With Hunter Pence’s home run in a three-run first inning, and Bumgarner pitching himself deeper into World Series lore, the Giants sent the Royals something between condolences and regrets. The home team and powder-blue crowd, which waited nearly three decades for the World Series to return to Kauffman Stadium, can only hope to get well soon in Game 2.

The Royals had gone 8-0 in this postseason. But they're playing a team that has dispatched all nine playoff opponents they've faced in the Bruce Bochy era.

Back on that Halloween Night in 2010, when Madison Bumgarner was barely 21 and shut out the Texas Rangers in Arlington, he said he couldn’t be sure if he’d ever reach the World Series again in his career.

Well, he has. Twice more. And he has been nothing short of historically good.

It took the 104^th pitch of his third World Series start, going 21 2/3 innings deep, before Bumgarner allowed a run in the Fall Classic. Salvador Perez dropped a fence-scraping home run into the Royals bullpen in the seventh inning.

The homer snapped the second longest World Series scoreless streak by a pitcher to begin his career in major league history. (Christy Mathewson tossed 28 zeroes in a row back when you needed a dirigible to get your feet off the ground.) The homer also ended Bumgarner’s streak at 32 2/3 scoreless postseason innings on the road, a major league record.

Until then, Bumgarner threw the same cold water on the Royals that he did to disarm the powerful Rangers in 2010 and Tigers in 2012. He worked eye levels with his fastball the first time through, offered them a completely different look the next time around, and when it was time to clock out, he’d held them to three hits in seven innings with a walk and five strikeouts.

Bumgarner has allowed just the lone run and eight hits in 22 innings over his World Series career, with five walks and 19 strikeouts.

The Royals’ only real shot to scratch him, aside from a bit of hard contact in the first inning, came in the third when shortstop Brandon Crawford fumbled a grounder from Omar Infante after Bumgarner nearly knocked the bat out of his hands. Bumgarner wasn’t afraid to throw a 3-1 slider to Mike Moustakas, who waved through it. But when he came back with an inside fastball, the Royals’ hot No. 9 hitter roped it into the right field corner for a double.

The Giants had a 3-0 lead at the time, but the Royals had no outs and two runners in scoring position. It was a potential turning point. Instead, Bumgarner engineered a reverse takedown. He went to an 0-2 count on each of the next three batters, first going neck-high to blow away Alcides Escobar with a 92 mph fastball. Then after Norichika Aoki was late on two fastballs, Bumgarner came back with a curve and the little No. 2 hitter couldn’t check his swing.

Bumgarner lost Lorenzo Cain to a six-pitch walk after getting ahead 0-2, but he followed with a first-pitch slider and cleanup man Eric Hosmer rolled it over to second base to strand the bases loaded.

It was the Royals’ last breath. Bumgarner retired 13 of the final 14 batters he faced, with Perez’s homer in the seventh the lone exception.

The Royals were 0 for 8 with five strikeouts and a walk the second time through the order against Bumgarner, and much of that had to do with a slow curve that he began to bust out in June. He threw one at 67 mph to Perez in the fourth, then used another to strike out Moustakas in the fifth.

By the end of the night, it was clear which team had a true Game 1 ace.

-- Andrew Baggarly, CSNBayArea.com