There were no fans waving signs, no heartfelt ovations, no outward signs of appreciation for all he had meant. There also was no win, no quality start, no true top-of-the-rotation dominance.
But given the circumstances, Diamondbacks left-hander Madison Bumgarner seemed to be OK with the way things played out on Saturday night both in his return to Oracle Park and his return from the injured list.
“I can find a lot of positive stuff about it for me,” Bumgarner said following a 4-3 loss to the San Francisco Giants in his first outing in nearly a month. “I felt pretty good about it, where we’re at.”
For more than a decade, Bumgarner and the Giants were linked. He helped them win three World Series titles. He became a legend in San Francisco. His departure – the Diamondbacks gave him a five-year, $85 million deal in December – marked an end of an era.
His outing on Saturday evening marked his first start at Oracle Park in a different uniform, and yet, from the outside, there did not appear to be anything particularly unusual about the evening. There were no noticeable moments of nostalgia. There were no interactions – nothing jovial, comical or otherwise – with his ex-teammates. Bumgarner appeared to be all business.
“I try to do that anyway, as you know,” he said, answering a question from a San Francisco reporter. “I still feel like I would have done that if people were allowed to come to the games, but there’s no doubt it would have been harder. It would have been a little different. That is my objective to go out there that way and put all my attention on what I’m doing.”
Bumgarner, who missed the past four starts with a back issue, gave up two runs in four innings. The runs scored on back-to-back solo homers by Evan Longoria and Darin Ruf in the second inning. His stuff was up, on average, about a tick across the board from where it had been last month.
In Bumgarner’s mind, one of home runs was on him, the other more a credit to the hitter. He said the pitch to Longoria was one he wanted back, a cutter he had considered throwing down but instead threw up in the zone. Longoria launched it out to left field. As for Ruf, Bumgarner did not believe the cutter he hit out to be that bad of a pitch, but Ruf clobbered it to straightaway center. “Tip your hat to him,” Bumgarner said.
There was more hard contact -- a scorched double by Wilmer Flores, three other balls hit 100 mph or harder that went for outs – but Bumgarner’s focus was on how he felt – and, seemingly, on his ability to build off the outing.
“Obviously,” he said, “I want to throw more than – I’m going to throw, I need to throw – more than four innings, (but) where we’re at and where we’re coming from, that’s kind of what we had there today to go with.”
Given that it was his first start since Aug. 9, Bumgarner said he understood manager Torey Lovullo’s decision to take him out after 72 pitches.
Bumgarner had averaged 87.8 mph with his fastball and 83.1 mph with his cutter in his first four starts. Those improved to 88.7 and 84.1, respectively, on Saturday night.
“I was just excited to be back out there and see the stuff starting to pick up a little bit for me,” he said. “It was marginal, but we’re trending in the right direction, I guess, with the stuff and the way I felt and making pitches and stuff. So I was pretty happy about it.”
It was a 2-1 game when Bumgarner departed after the fourth inning. The Diamondbacks bullpen wasn’t able to hold the Giants down, with relievers Joe Mantiply and Artie Lewicki allowing a pair of runs in the sixth. The loss was the Diamondbacks' 14th in their past 16 games and dropped them to 15-25 with 20 games remaining.
The night was memorable for Daulton Varsho, who connected in the seventh for his first career home run, a hard liner that went over the high fence in right and landed in McCovey Cove. Varsho became the first visiting player in the ballpark’s 21-year history to hit his first career homer into the water for a “splash hit.”
“Pretty cool feeling,” Varsho said. “Normally, I always sprint out of the box, that’s a thing I usually do. I didn’t think it was gone until it left the field. It was cool to be able to see that. It was awesome.”
Still, Bumgarner was the focus of the night – and he figures to be once again next year, when, hopefully, he pitches with fans in the stands.
“I’m looking forward to it,” Bumgarner said. “I’m excited for it. I don’t know what it’s going to be like, but I’m excited for it.”
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