What do Clayton Kershaw, Zack Greinke and Jacob deGrom all have in common?
They are all notches on Madison Bumgarner’s home run war club.
Bumgarner, the Giants’ lefty ace who faces the Mets at Citi Field in the National League wild-card game Wednesday, has belted 14 career homers. Twice, he victimized Kershaw. The nine spot in the Giants’ batting order, usually a gimme in the NL, is about as dead as Times Square on New Year’s Eve when he pitches.
“I do take a lot of pride in it because I’ve seen the difference it can make in a ballgame throughout the year,” Bumgarner said before the Giants worked out Tuesday. “You get certain opportunities that if you don’t put the work in, you’re not going to be able to come through and help the team. Sometimes, that spot works out to where you’re the guy with a good chance to drive in a run to put the team ahead, tie the game, whatever. So you’ve got to put the work in to be able to help out.”
The Mets know all about Bumgarner, a career .183 hitter — which is like .350 in position-player stats. They watched him torch deGrom for a two-run shot on Aug. 18 in San Francisco during a 10-7 Giants win. One saving point? He’s 0-for-22 lifetime in the postseason.
“He can swing the bat a little bit,” said another pretty fair-hitting pitcher, Noah Syndergaard, Bumgarner’s wild-card mound opponent. “It’s not fun hitting against him, personally speaking, but he’s just another hitter in my mind, so I’ll attack him the same way.”