Christina Kahrl, MLB Staff Writer 9y

Bumgarner faces new workload challenge

MESA, Ariz. -- It was little more than four months ago that you probably last saw Madison Bumgarner on a mound: Game 7 of the World Series in Kansas City, Missouri, as he capped a dominant October by coming out of the pen to shut down the Royals to seal the San Francisco Giants' third title in five years.

And for his next act? Bumgarner's 2015 spring debut could not be further separated by time, place or stakes -- or results. After getting an ovation from the large contingent of Giants fans in attendance, he was clobbered by the A's, giving up five hits, four runs and a home run to the 10 batters he faced.

Spring results matter so little that it was understandable that Bumgarner was philosophical about it. "Right now, the results, I'm not worried if I strike out everybody or give up three or four runs or whatever it was today," he said. "It's just getting your body back in the rhythm of pitching and facing hitters and competing and making pitches. Right now is just [about] getting back into the swing of things."

But that's the thing: Bumgarner didn't exactly execute his pitches as well as he would have liked.

"I threw everything today … It was just OK, but it could have obviously been better. It was pretty good for the first day," Bumgarner said. "I'm trying to locate them, and I want to get them there and I want to get guys out. But that's not the main concern right now. Obviously, it will be before long. Right now, it's just about getting your arm in shape and getting to make pitches."

After his sublime 2014 season, Bumgarner figures to be watched closely for any sign of trouble after shouldering a career-high workload of 270 innings pitched between the regular season and October. Perhaps more ominous, as FanGraphs analyst Jeff Zimmerman pointed out, Bumgarner joined a small group of contemporary pitchers to throw more than 4,000 pitches in a season, joining former Giants aces Russ Ortiz (2002) and Tim Lincecum (2010). Zimmerman's research suggests a modest downturn wouldn't be all that unusual, but neither Ortiz nor Lincecum imploded the following season. The chief concern is that Bumgarner threw those 270 innings and 4,000 pitches in his age-24 season.

After his rough spring debut, Bumgarner wasn't fazed by the first or future questions about his workload, noting that it wasn't the first time these kinds of questions have been asked of him.

"I've had these questions before, during the 2010 season; I've kind of been through that a little bit," Bumgarner said. "But we get asked the same question pretty often sometimes," he dryly added.

Drawing a comparison between the two campaigns is interesting but also reflects how far Bumgarner has come in the course of his career so far. In 2010, Bumgarner was just 20 years old and had already made his big league debut in 2009. He had thrown around 140 innings across the minors and majors in each of his first two years in the Giants organization in 2008-2009. What initially created questions for him in 2010 were the 5 mph missing from his fastball in spring training; bad mechanics and a poor offseason workout regimen wound up getting the blame. After correcting for those things in Triple-A, he pitched a combined 214⅔ innings between the minors, majors and postseason as the Giants won the first of their recent trio of titles. That was a 70-inning spike from his previously established career high. Because Bumgarner was just 20, that was every bit as ominous then as last year's increase from 201⅓ innings pitched in 2013 to 270 total frames in 2014.

How did Bumgarner handle that bump in workload after 2010, pitching his first full season in 2011? Extremely well, making 33 starts and throwing 204⅔ innings. His big league ERA went up to 3.21 from 3.00, but his FIP (fielding-independent pitching) was significantly better, 2.67 versus 3.66. He's been carefully monitored at every point of his career and has never been on the DL.

Will Bumgarner shrug off this new workload spike as handily as he did between 2010 and 2011? Predicting injury is a fool's errand; we can only evaluate the risk. The Giants won it all by taking that risk with Bumgarner's arm last October. It remains to be seen if there's still a bill to pay.

Christina Kahrl writes about MLB for ESPN. You can follow her on Twitter.

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