Breaking Down Bumgarner’s Victory

Madison Bumgarner pitched very well last night and recorded his first career victory. In his first few starts he showed the flashes of what he was capable of but always seemed to have a bad inning or two that created too big of a whole.

This time he was able to wiggle out of the early jams that he found himself in and when he finally got into a rhythm he was every bit as good as advertised.

His final line from the game is very good.

8 innings, 0 ER, 0 R, 3H, 3BB, 5K, 115 pitches and a game score of 78.

Pitch Statistics
Pitch Type	Avg Speed	Max Speed	Avg H-Break	Avg V-Break	Count	Strikes / %	Swinging Strikes / %	Linear Weights	Time to Plate
FF (FourSeam Fastball)	90.18	92	2.85	7.97	64	40 / 62.50%	3 / 4.69%	-2.3043	0.416
CH (Changeup)	80.81	82.1	6.46	3.52	8	5 / 62.50%	1 / 12.50%	-0.7415	0.462
SL (Slider)	83.98	85.5	-2.89	2.32	25	17 / 68.00%	0 / 0.00%	-0.4920	0.445
CU (Curveball)	73.63	75.8	-6.46	-3.10	13	7 / 53.85%	2 / 15.38%	-0.8748	0.515
FT (TwoSeam Fastball)	89.56	89.9	6.38	7.12	5	4 / 80.00%	1 / 20.00%	0.4593	0.423
Pitch classifications provided by the Gameday Algorithm and may be inaccurate. Pitch Type LWTS correspond to how many runs were likely to score on a particular pitch based on average run expectancy when each pitch was thrown and what happened as a result. Negative scores indicate more effective pitches. Time to Plate is the time, in seconds, that it takes an average pitch of this type to reach the plate. This is strongly correlated with velocity, but also factors in movement.

He primarily used the fastball and mixed it up with the breaking balls. He showed decent velocity starting the game in the low 90's and by the end of the 8^th still sitting around 90 mph.

The other major factor in his success is that he was able to keep his pitch count down in each inning. (Maybe this is something that he can help or other talented lefty out with Jonathan Sanchez.)

Inning-by-Inning Pitch Totals
Inning	Pitches in Inning	Strikes in Inning	Strike% in Inning	Cumulative Total Pitches
1	19	10	52.63	19
2	19	11	57.89	38
3	14	8	57.14	52
4	17	12	70.59	69
5	8	6	75.00	77
6	14	9	64.29	91
7	13	9	69.23	104
8	11	8	72.73	115

You can see that after the 3^rd he was a much better pitcher, he seemed to have settled down and established a nice rhythm. After this point the Brewers never really got anything going against him.

Overall this was a great game and I am glad that he is pitching well especially after facing two tough teams and then coming to a hitters ball park, he hasn't gotten the break him in slow kind of treatment. It is encouraging to see him do well and hopefully this is a sign of things to come for a number of years. He really seems to a pretty well polished pitcher already.