Madison Bumgarner allows grand slam but gets his home run revenge
The fourth inning of Thursday’s game between the San Francisco Giants and the New York Mets was pretty crazy. With Madison Bumgarner pitching for the Giants and Jacob deGrom on the hill for the Mets, you wouldn’t expect a lot of runs to be scored. But even though they both have two of the lowest ERAs in the National League, that’s not what happened in the fourth inning.
It started with the Mets in the top of the inning essentially terrorizing Bumgarner on the mound. T.J. Rivera singled, and then Wilmer Flores and Travis d’Arnaud just wouldn’t swing at what Bumgarner was offering. He walked them both, loading the bases. Then Justin Ruggiano came to the plate and jacked a grand slam, which is nearly unheard of for Bumgarner.
Unheard of or not, it happened. But Bumgarner wasn’t going to take that grand slam sitting down. The Giants came roaring back in the bottom of the fourth, and the run scoring started with Hunter Pence’s crazy-eyed RBI single. Two runs scored when the next batter, Eduardo Nunez, tripled to clear the bases, but the score was 4-3 with the Mets still leading.
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But after Joe Panik struck out, Bumgarner came to the plate to exact his revenge. He worked a seven-pitch at-bat from deGrom, ending it by launching the baseball into the stands in left center field for a two-run home run.
It was Bumgarner’s third homer of the year, and it put the Giants up 5-4. According to SFGate.com, Bumgarner was the first pitcher in almost 60 years to allow a grand slam and then hit a homer in the very same inning.
The Giants would eventually win 10-7, but the fourth inning was still the craziest. All told, nine combined runs scored for both teams in that inning, off pitchers who are considered to be among the best in the game. That’s nuts, but hey, that’s baseball!
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
