Are we Mad about Madi -- or is he just a son of a gun?

[rog]

I'm surprised no one has commented on Madison Bumgarner's horrible performance last night.  10 hits in just two innings?  Really?

Now, as I mentioned in Madison's previous start -- also against the Royals -- he pitched quite well in that one.  I gave the only caveat as that he faced a very weak lineup, one in which the #5 hitter had a .220 career batting average and hit .225 last season.  But still, Madison got the job done nicely. 


And it's not the only good outing he's had this spring.  I believe three of his six outings have been pretty decent.  But he's been horrendously inconsistent, and he's given up just under a run per inning (8.27 ERA).  His WHIP is 1.79.  Something's not right.  Maybe MADISON himself is injured in some way.

Whatever the case, while not all 10 hits he gave up were roped last night, he was still hit quite hard.  When batters hit .625 against you, you're not exactly fooling them that night.

I mentioned early on that Madison seemed to be effective when he could keep his fastball at the very top or above the zone.  But when it drops down even just a little, it seems to get roped.  His breaking ball can make hitters look bad when he gets them to chase it outside the zone, but when he leaves it in the strike zone, they seem to be able to hit it.

Do any of our former pitchers have an idea what's going on with Madison?  He's pitched worse this spring than Jeff Samardzija did last season, and we know that Jeff was injured and probably shouldn't even have been pitching.  He himself said the other night that he was used to pitching through pain, and that was why he kept trying last season.

I still don't understand why some elected to simply ignore the many signs that Madison has actually been declining over the past THREE seasons, not just his two injured ones.  Maybe his difficulties this spring have opened up some eyes that ignoring the signs just isn't prudent.

What are the root problems Madison is experiencing, and how does he overcome them?  It's not that he's been awful every time out.  His first and his most recent outings were horrible, but I think three out of the four in between were acceptable to very good.  How does he regain his consistency?

[rog]

Here is what CBS Sports said about last night's outing:


Bumgarner gave up seven runs on 10 hits and a walk over just two innings Friday against the Royals. After the game, pitching coach Curt Young said that there was nothing wrong with Bumgarner physically, Henry Schulman of The San Francisco Chronicle reports.

Bumgarner had cruised against the same Royals team in his last outing, throwing 6.2 innings against them while allowing just one run. For the spring he's got a 20:2 K:BB over 20.2 innings, but has given up 19 runs on 35 hits, including three homers.

[rog]

From Henry Schulman:


“He’s fine,” Young said. “He just got roughed up.”


But the question is, WHY did he get roughed? Why has he been so up and down this spring? The ball Whit Merrifield hit up the middle to open the game no doubt brought memories back to Madison of the ball Merrifield hit similarly that broke Madison's pinkie, in LAST season's final outing of the spring for him. But this one missed him entirely, skittering into center field for insult, but no injury.

And Madison just didn't get better. It wasn't that he wasn't throwing strikes -- 35 strikes and 16 balls the last I saw, and he threw very few pitches after that count -- it was that the Royals were consistently HITTING them, and hitting them HARD. On the first homer he gave up, I believe the Royals' announcer said that might have been the fastest they'd seen a ball leave the park.

So what do you think the problem is, guys? Should we be worried, or is this simply Spring Training?