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Madison Bumgarner has a team-friendly contract that features two team options for 2018 and 2019, but that’s not stopping the San Francisco Giants from getting an early start on extension talks with their ace.

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Giants Want to Talk Extension

Thursday, Oct. 13

Per Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle, Giants general manager Bobby Evans has already spoken to Bumgarner and told his agents the team is ready to discuss an extension when they are.

Bumgarner has been one of the best bargains in Major League Baseball since signing his original five-year, $35 million deal in April 2012.

That deal bought out Bumgarner’s first three years of free agency if the Giants end up exercising both of their options.

Per Baseball-Reference.com, next year will be the first time in Bumgarner’s career that he makes more than $10 million in a season.

Bumgarner is scheduled to make $11.5 million in 2017. For perspective, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, Kansas City Royals pitcher Ian Kennedy will make $13.5 million next season.

There aren’t many pitchers in baseball who warrant an extension more than Bumgarner, who has been named to four consecutive National League All-Star teams.

After finishing in the top 10 in Cy Young voting in each of the previous three seasons, Bumgarner has a strong chance to make it four straight in 2016, setting career highs in starts (34), innings (226.2) and strikeouts (251).

The Giants could end up having to pay Bumgarner a record amount to lock him up. David Price signed the largest contract for a pitcher in history last year, when the Boston Red Sox gave him $217 million over seven years.

Clayton Kershaw of the Los Angeles Dodgers, Zack Greinke of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals are the only other pitchers who have signed deals worth $200 million or more.

At just 27 years old, Bumgarner doesn’t figure to slow down anytime soon. He’s been one of the most consistently dominant pitchers in the big leagues since 2011 and is as valuable as any other player the Giants have.

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Think twice before you discount the notion of San Francisco’s even-year magic because the Giants were dispatched from the MLB playoffs by the Chicago Cubs in four games. There was a whole lot of magic involved for the Giants to even reach the postseason.

Let’s not forget that it was the Giants who had baseball’s best record (57-33) and a 6.5-game lead in the National League West at the All-Star break. That they managed to reach the playoffs at all after posting a 30-42 second-half record is nothing short of miraculous.

But there’s only so much the baseball gods will do to help a team. At some point, it’s on the players to get the job done. The Giants simply weren’t up to the task, and they’ll head into the offseason looking for ways they can avoid carrying that disappointing finish into 2017.

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San Diego Padres manager Andy Green said starting pitcher Tyson Ross underwent surgery on Thursday to address symptoms of thoracic outlet syndrome, per Dennis Lin of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

He could be ready for spring training.

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Ross’ Surgery Successful

Thursday, Oct. 13 

The Padres announced Ross underwent successful thoracic outlet surgery on Thursday, per AJ Cassavell of MLB.com. 

Latest on Ross’ Recovery Time

Wednesday, Oct. 12

Lin noted the surgery typically brings a recovery time of four to six months, hence the possibility that Ross will return by spring training.

Ross made just one start in the 2016 season and allowed seven earned runs in 5.1 innings of work. According to Lin, he was placed on the disabled list with shoulder inflammation shortly thereafter and never made it back to the mound the rest of the year.

He could have been back earlier, but he twisted his ankle while doing exercises in a hotel room in July before an extended bullpen session as he continued his rehab, per Lin. 

This was a pitcher who was expected to be the ace of a pitching staff that once featured Drew Pomeranz and veteran James Shields. But with his inability to stay on the field and Shields and Pomeranz being dealt to the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox, respectively, the Padres’ starting rotation slumped to one of the worst groups in baseball. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com.

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The San Francisco Giants used five pitchers in a four-run, ninth-inning rally that saw them get ousted from the National League Division Series by the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday night, and veteran Santiago Casilla was highly emotional about not being among them.

Following the Giants’ shocking 6-5 loss in Game 4, the 36-year-old veteran was in tears as he commented on manager Bruce Bochy’s decision to leave him on the bench.

According to Carl Steward of the San Jose Mercury News, Casilla said:

I never had that moment before during five years here. I had a little struggle. But everybody [in the bullpen] has had their bad moments. I think they forgot all the great moments I’ve had here. I’ve pitched a lot in the playoffs and done my job. I know I am a good pitcher.

Casilla’s career postseason numbers are sparkling, as he boasts a 0.92 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and four saves in 19.2 pressure-packed playoff innings.

The 13th-year major leaguer struggled mightily down the stretch during the regular season, however, as he posted a 5.87 ERA in September and October. Casilla ended the campaign with a 3.57 ERA and nine blown saves in 31 opportunities, which prompted the Giants to remove him from the full-time closer role.

In Casilla’s stead, Bochy used Derek Law, Javier Lopez, Sergio Romo, Will Smith and Hunter Strickland in the ninth inning Tuesday.

They combined to allow four runs on four hits and one walk without recording a single strikeout.

Casilla finished the 2016 playoffs with just 0.2 innings to his credit, allowing two hits and no runs. While he has posted a combined 69 regular-season saves over the past two years, Casilla’s time with the Giants may have come to an end Tuesday since he is set to hit free agency.

Although Casilla’s late-season play didn’t inspire much confidence, his experience in big moments may have trumped that on the playoff stage.

Bochy is a likely future Hall of Famer, with three World Series titles to his credit, and he often seems to push the right buttons during the playoffs, but leaving one of the best clutch playoff relievers of the past several years in the bullpen was a questionable decision.

It may not have quite reached the level of Baltimore Orioles manager Buck Showalter opting against using dominant closer Zach Britton in an American League Wild Card Game loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, but Bochy’s choice is likely to be second-guessed for many years to come.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter.

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Chase Utley saved Clayton Kershaw from being the goat. Again.

As far as the Los Angeles Dodgers are concerned, there was a happy ending to Game 4 of their National League Division Series on Tuesday. With the Dodgers’ season on the line with two on and two out in the bottom of the eighth inning of a 5-5 game against the Washington Nationals, Utley plated the go-ahead run with an RBI single off Blake Treinen.

After that, Kenley Jansen retired the Nationals in order in the ninth to preserve a 6-5 victory and send the Dodger Stadium faithful home happy and knowing Los Angeles had lived to fight another day—specifically Thursday, for Game 5 at Nationals Park.

But Kershaw? He presumably went home feeling relieved. Because it wasn’t long before Utley’s clutch hit that the Fox Sports 1 cameras had caught him reduced to this:

That’s the look of a man who (at least in a general sense) was not only painfully aware of that bottom number but also how much worse it had been made by recent events.

The top of the seventh inning started well for the left-hander. He allowed a leadoff single to Danny Espinosa but got Pedro Severino for his 11th strikeout and then Chris Heisey to fly out. All he needed was one more out.

It did not come. Instead, this happened:

• Trea Turner: infield single
• Bryce Harper: walk
• Pitching change: Pedro Baez
• Jayson Werth: hit by pitch, RBI
• Pitching change: Luis Avilan
• Daniel Murphy: single, two RBI

When it was over, the “ER” portion of Kershaw’s line score had ballooned from two to five. With it, his career postseason ERA went from an ugly 4.48 to a 4.83 mark that’s about as ugly as the public perception of his postseason track record.

It’s the latest cruel twist of fate October has thrown at Kershaw, whom most of the world knows as a three-time Cy Young Award winner and generally the best pitcher in the sport. And like most of the others, this one was made crueler by how smoothly things had been going.

Kershaw’s day started with promise. After holding out on everyone following an 8-3 loss in Game 3 on Monday, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts announced Tuesday morning he would start Kershaw on three days’ rest rather than put Los Angeles’ season in the hands of 20-year-old rookie Julio Urias.

“One, Clayton gives us the best chance to win,” Roberts said (via ESPN.com), “and No. 2, he gives us the best chance to go deeper into a game.”

The Dodgers needed the latter after getting only 7.1 innings out of Rich Hill and Kenta Maeda on Sunday and Monday. Had Urias struggled under the postseason spotlight, the Dodgers would have been doomed before they even knew what hit ’em.

For Kershaw, it was a shot at redemption under circumstances he’s fared well in. While one of them is remembered for a hanging curveball to Matt Adams, Kershaw’s previous postseason starts on short rest had each consisted of at least six innings and no more than three earned runs.

At first it seemed unlikely Kershaw would add another to the pile. The Nationals got to him for a run on 27 pitches in the first inning and tacked on another in the third. But he settled in after that, and the Dodgers offense got him three runs of breathing room.

Kershaw wasn’t at his sharpest. Brooks Baseball showed he was working up in the zone, where he could have been hurt. But he was sitting around 94-95 mph with his fastball, which climbed as high as 96 mph. He got nine swinging strikes on his heater and 12 more on his curveball and slider. When location fails, it’s good to have that kind of stuff.

This is where my copy of Hot Takes for Dummies says I’m supposed to write that Kershaw then let the pressure burst his pipes rather than turn him into a diamond. I’m supposed to write that he choked.

But, nah. What really happened was an unfortunate series of events that didn’t go Kershaw’s way.

Turner’s infield hit probably should have gotten Kershaw out of the inning. Turner didn’t put good wood on a curveball, hitting it just 83.7 mph, per Baseball Savant. If Corey Seager had been playing a step to his left or had gotten the ball out of his glove quicker, that would have been an out.

Then came the walk to Harper. It pushed Kershaw’s pitch count to 110 but didn’t feature a bad pitch and may have ended differently if he’d gotten one very close call:

Give Harper credit for working a tough at-bat, but don’t take too much credit away from Kershaw. The fact he was still making pitches after having thrown so many on short rest is admirable.

“A matter of will,” Nationals manager Dusty Baker said (via Dodger Insider). “Kershaw was on empty. They knew it; we knew it. That was some battle.”

Once Kershaw was in the dugout, he was powerless to stop the horrors Baez and Avilan released. Baez needed only one pitch to hit Werth. Avilan failed two pitches into his lefty-on-lefty matchup. That their debacles—merely the latest in a trend well covered by Bill Baer of Hardball Talk—resulted in three runs should not to be forgotten when looking at the five runs on Kershaw’s line score.

Had the Dodgers lost the game and the series, there would be a “But…” to talk about. Utley made sure that didn’t happen, though, putting this game in a gray area as far as optics go.

Postseason legacies are defined just as much by memorable achievements and failures as they are by numbers. Had Kershaw’s line loomed large in a Dodgers loss, it would have been another one of his visible failures to carpe the hell out of the diem in October. Since they picked him up and carped the diem on their own, Kershaw’s performance didn’t go down as another visible failure. It’s more of a missed opportunity.

The same can be said of Kershaw’s performance in Game 1, in which he had to rough it through five innings to pace the Dodgers to a 4-3 win. The fact a series they were heavily favored to win is tied 2-2 has little to do with his shortcomings and more to do with those of his rotation mates.

That is to say it remains to be seen whether Kershaw will find redemption or grow another pair of goat horns in his latest trip to the postseason. If either happens, it will be in the National League Championship Series or the World Series.

For now, it’s a push. The Dodgers are still alive, and Kershaw’s postseason legacy is no better or worse than it was at the outset.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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On a Monday night when Madison Bumgarner was mortal, the San Francisco Giants found a way to stay alive.

Sure, they’re down 2-1 in the best-of-five National League Division Series to the young, potent Chicago Cubs. They’ll face another elimination game Tuesday. A win in that game will only assure a trip back to Chicago for Game 5.

Still, after prevailing 6-5 in 13 innings Monday, the Giants are officially in this. That old, familiar postseason mojo is stirring by the shores of McCovey Cove behind a cast of heroes old and new.

For much of the evening, things looked bleak for San Francisco.

After dropping the first two games of the series at Wrigley Field, the Giants watched Bumgarner—their battle-tested October ace—surrender a three-run homer to Cubs starter Jake Arrieta in the second inning to give Chicago a 3-0 cushion.

Just like that, a pessimistic fog descended on AT&T Park. Maybe this even-year nonsense was finally over.

The Giants, though, chipped away, plating runs in the third and fifth innings. Veteran center fielder Denard Span—playing in his first postseason with San Francisco—doubled, tripled and scored twice.

Then, in the eighth, Conor Gillaspie cracked a two-run triple off flame-throwing Cubs closer Aroldis Chapman to give San Francisco a 4-3 lead.

That’s the same Conor Gillaspie who hit a three-run homer in the top of the ninth inning of the Giants’ 3-0 Wild Card Game win over the New York Mets.

That’s the same Conor Gillaspie the Giants drafted in the first round in 2008, only to watch him drift off to the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Angels before returning this season in an ancillary role.

The only reason Gillaspie is starting for San Francisco is because regular third baseman Eduardo Nunez tweaked his hamstring.

A wayward former prospect coming up huge for the Giants in October—where have we heard that one before?

Oh, right.

Brandon Crawford added an RBI single in the eighth Monday to make it 5-3. But the Cubs’ Kris Bryant launched a two-run homer off Giants closer Sergio Romo in the ninth to send the game into extra innings.

After that, it was a battle of the bullpens. While San Francisco’s pen was a source of angst and inconsistency down the stretch, Giants relievers rallied.

Romo rebounded to record a scoreless 10th, lefty Will Smith logged an uneventful frame and rookie Ty Blach tossed two shutout innings.

Blach earned the win thanks to second baseman Joe Panik’s walk-off double off the bricks in right-center field.

After more than five hours, the Giants could finally celebrate. They are now 10-0 in elimination games dating back to 2010.

“Every year is a different year. It’s definitely not an ideal situation,” right fielder Hunter Pence said prior to Monday’s action, per NBC Bay Area’s Brendan Weber. “We understand the situation. Our backs are against the wall.”

That hasn’t changed. One win, even a dramatic one, doesn’t reverse the Giants’ uphill struggle against a deep, dangerous Chicago club.

But Game 3 recaptured the magic that defined San Francisco’s 2010, 2012 and 2014 title runs—the inescapable sense the Giants were always in it, no matter the circumstances.

Even with Bumgarner wobbling, familiar names chipped in.

Buster Posey went 3-for-5 with an RBI and a run scored. Steady skipper Bruce Bochy pulled the right levers, expertly managing his bullpen while his counterpart, bespectacled media darling Joe Maddon, burned through relievers and was left with few options as the night wore on.

But it was the relative newbies—including Gillaspie, Span and Blach—who kept the Giants kicking.

As Bruce Jenkins of the San Francisco Chronicle noted, Gillaspie has gone from “a crazy postseason novelty” to “a full-blown legend.”

On Tuesday, another new face will look to contribute, as trade-deadline pickup Matt Moore takes the hill against the Cubs’ John Lackey.

For now, San Francisco can bask in the glory of a vintage playoff performance.

We don’t know if the even-year shenanigans will continue, but we do know the Giants will troll the baseball world for another day at least.

This team never dies. Which means, by definition, they’re alive.

All statistics and results current as of Monday and courtesy of MLB.com unless otherwise noted.

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The Colorado Rockies are in search of a new manager after Walt Weiss stepped down from the job after four seasons with the club on Monday.

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Perez On Rockies’ Radar

Saturday, Oct. 8

On Saturday, Thomas Harding of the Rockies’ official website reported that the team is looking at Atlanta Braves first base coach Eddie Perez as a possible candidate. Perez “acknowledged” that he’s been contacted by the organization, according to Reyes Urena of Venezuelan publication El Emergente (via Harding).

Other than Perez, Harding noted any other Rockies coaching candidates have remained unknown at the moment, although Triple-A manager Glenallen Hill’s name was mentioned during a conference call after it was announced that Weiss would not be returning. 

Perez is currently spending the offseason coaching Tigres de Aragua of the Venezuelan Winter League and has been a coach with the Braves for 10 seasons. 

Last season, he won the Winter League title with the Venezuelan club and advanced to the Caribbean Series, where his team fell in the finals to Mexico’s Venados de Mazatlan. 

That kind of managerial success was expected from his former teammate and future Hall of Famer, Chipper Jones, via David O’Brien of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

I’m not surprised at all of Eddie’s success as a manager. It is just a matter of time before he is experiencing success as a big league manager. He’s learned a ton, as have many coaches, from the great [former Braves manager] Bobby Cox. Some of the same traits that made him an all-time favorite teammate for countless players, are also what makes him a great manager now, and in the future.

The 48-year-old previously spent 11 years in the majors from 1995 to 2005 as a catcher and first baseman mostly for the Braves along with two one-year stints with the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers. 

He posted a .253 career batting average with 40 home runs and 172 RBI as he spent a large portion of his career backing up Javy Lopez in Atlanta. However, his finest moment came in 1999 when he was voted NLCS MVP for batting .500 with two home runs and five RBI against the New York Mets in six games:

Whether it be Perez or another candidate, the new manager of the Rockies will have their hands full in turning around an organization that has been irrelevant for the better part of seven years. 

The 2016 season was the first time since 2010 that the Rockies didn’t finish fourth or last in the National League West Division. They haven’t had a winning season since that 2010 season and haven’t made the playoffs since 2009. 

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com. 

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Fact: San Francisco Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner threw a complete-game shutout against the New York Mets on Wednesday night, the third of his postseason career. He is now tied for the second-most complete-game shutouts in postseason history.

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

Source: B/R Insights 

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NEW YORK — If the Chicago Cubs are the team that wants to spend this month rewriting their history, the San Francisco Giants are the team that can spend October embracing theirs.

This is the team that knows no October disappointment, at least since their run of championship baseball began six years ago this month. This is the team that expects every big game to go the way Wednesday night’s Wild Card Game went at Citi Field, when Madison Bumgarner pitched a four-hit shutout and Conor Gillaspie hit a ninth-inning home run and the Giants beat the New York Mets, 3-0.

The Giants expected this, and no matter how many times anyone says this is finally the Cubs’ year, the Giants will expect to go into Wrigley Field and win there, too, starting Friday night in Game 1 of the National League Division Series.

“When it comes to playoff baseball,” Brandon Belt said Wednesday, “we feel we’re the best team.”

They were the best team Wednesday, no matter how good Noah Syndergaard looked. “Dominating” and “unhittable” were the words the Giants used to describe the Mets’ ace, but they never said “unbeatable.”

Syndergaard didn’t give up a run in the seven innings he pitched. He only allowed two hits. He struck out 10.

He doesn’t get an “L” next to his name in the box score, but he lost this battle of aces with Bumgarner simply because seven shutout innings isn’t as good as nine shutout innings.

“If I had a choice of one pitcher I’d want on my side in the postseason, it would definitely be him,” Giants center fielder Denard Span said of Bumgarner.

The best news for the Cubs is that Bumgarner won’t be on the mound Friday or Saturday at Wrigley. He’ll pitch just once in the Division Series. Then again, that’s exactly the situation the Giants faced two years ago, when Bumgarner threw a four-hit shutout in the Wild Card Game in Pittsburgh and the Giants headed to Washington to play the Division Series against the team with the league’s best record.

Sound familiar?

Span remembers it well. He played for that Washington Nationals team.

“I was like, ‘We’re going to crush this team,'” he said. “I’m being honest.”

The Nationals actually beat Bumgarner in Game 3. It was the only game he lost in six postseason starts that year. It was also the only game the Nationals won in that best-of-five series.

They went down, just as the Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies and Texas Rangers did in 2010, just as the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers did in 2012, just as the Cardinals and Kansas City Royals did later in that October 2014.

The Cubs are good, but are they better than all those teams that went in thinking they were going to crush—or at least beat—the Giants?

“I know how good they are,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said. “You just want a shot. We’ll be ready.”

As interesting as it might have been to see the Mets and Cubs play in a rematch of the 2015 National League Championship Series, Giants-Cubs was always the matchup that posed a greater threat in the Cubs’ pursuit of history. While the injury-riddled Mets would have had to begin the series with some combination of Bartolo Colon, Seth Lugo and Robert Gsellman in Games 1 and 2, Bochy can pitch Johnny Cueto against Jon Lester in Game 1, then pick between Jeff Samardzija and Matt Moore for Game 2 against Kyle Hendricks.

The Mets were the defending National League champs, but with so many guys hurt, they should be celebrated for even getting this far. The Giants, in contrast, are the team that reached the All-Star break with the best record in baseball.

Yes, better than the Cubs.

It’s true that the Giants were nothing like that for most of the second half, when they had one of the worst records in the major leagues. But it’s also true that sometime during the final week of the regular season, that team from the first half seemed to magically reappear.

“This team plays well when it matters the most,” pitcher Jake Peavy said. “I think it showed.”

They kept telling each other that they still controlled their own destiny, that they only had to find a way to start winning and keep winning. A week ago Wednesday, they were a game ahead of the St. Louis Cardinals for the final National League playoff spot.

The Cardinals didn’t lose again, but neither did the Giants.

“It seems like it took getting our backs against the wall to see that team [from the first half of the season] come back,” Belt said. “It’s not the way you want it to happen, but right now, we’ve got all the confidence in the world.”

They had it Wednesday, helped by having the best postseason pitcher in recent memory on the mound. But you’d better believe they’ll have it again when they show up at Wrigley Field.

They might not beat the Cubs, whose 103 wins are deserving of their status as favorites. But after all the big October wins in those years since 2010—yes, in all the even-numbered years—would it really surprise you if they did?

Danny Knobler covers Major League Baseball as a national columnist for Bleacher Report.

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Boasting a National League-best 27 home runs at the end of July, Colorado Rockies shortstop Trevor Story was on pace to decimate Nomar Garciaparra’s rookie shortstop record of 30 home runs, which was set in 1997 for a Boston Red Sox team that finished 78-84, per MLB.com.

Entering the season, the Rockies were awaiting punishment for Jose Reyes’ offseason issues, leaving the door open for Story at shortstop to begin the season. Reyes was eventually handed a suspension for 51 games, allowing the 23-year-old an extended audition for the starting role.

Any detractors of his were quickly silenced, as Story opened his major league career with a bang. In his first six games, Story collected seven home runs, including two in his major league debut on Opening Day against the Arizona Diamondbacks. 

Many may point to Coors Field (known as the league’s friendliest ballpark for hitters) as the main source of Story’s power, but he surprisingly tallied 11 of his 27 home runs on the road.

He played well enough for the Rockies to designate Reyes for assignment when he was eligible to return from the suspension, permanently handing Story the shortstop job.

Unfortunately for both team and player alike, Story was diagnosed with a torn ligament in this thumb in early August, bringing an end to a spectacular rookie season. Despite missing the final two months, he should garner serious consideration for National League Rookie of the Year honors.

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