Nevius: No need to panic over Madison Bumgarner’s shellacking

SAN JOSE - The plan for Madison Bumgarner last week was pretty simple. He'd pitch a rehab start for the Class A San Jose Giants and go five innings or 70 pitches, whichever came first.

No one thought they might run out of baseballs.

Against the always pesky Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, Bumgarner was anything but overpowering. He nipped and nibbled at the strike zone for three innings, allowing just one hit, a lazy opposite field fly that barely cleared the right field fence.

But after taking the hill to his traditional “Fire on the Mountain,” the fourth turned into “Fire on the Mound.”

D.J. Peters, a 6-6, 215-pound top prospect for the Dodgers' farm team, led off the inning with a towering thunderbolt that cleared the left-field fence, the fence behind the fence and much of suburban San Jose.

Estimated at 471 feet the no-doubt-about-it shot recalled Kevin Costner's line in Bull Durham, “Anything that travels that far ought to have a stewardess on it.”

Complications ensued.

There was a triple high off the center-field wall, a couple of singles and then a three-run dinger to left. There was another single, a run-scoring double and then, having batted around the order, it was time for Peters again. He hit a shrieking line drive that just cleared the left-field barrier and made it 9-1. It also made Peters the first batter to hit two home runs off Bumgarner in one inning, according to MLB.com.

So I'm going to go out on a limb and say MadBum isn't ready.

And there must be at least a seed of doubt in the Giants' brain trust that Bumgarner's foolhardy dirt bike accident back in April may have damaged the four-time All-Star irreparably.

But before we freak out, a couple of caveats.

First, Bumgarner threw strikes, 51 of 76 pitches. He's only made one other rehab start, three innings at Triple A Sacramento since he crashed the motorcycle and injured his pitching shoulder.

He's working his way into shape in spring training mode, when such calamitous innings are not unusual.

In fact, although reporters predicted that Bumgarner might skip a scheduled press session after getting cuffed around, the 2014 World Series MVP stepped into an improvised interview room - with no ice on his shoulder - and answered questions gracefully.

“I feel pretty good about it,” he said. “My command was pretty good. Obviously it was kind of a lopsided result, but for what I'm looking for it was pretty good.”

Second, after being out for three months, it is not a surprise to hear that Bumgarner got tired.

He will be back pitching in San Jose on Monday and the optimistic theory is that he will have built strength and will be more effective. If so, he'll be activated after the All-Star break to stabilize the Giants' starting rotation.

Given Bumgarner's bulldog determination and physical gifts, that's what nearly everyone is expecting.

But if the San Jose start demonstrated anything it was what a thin margin for error there is. It wasn't as if Bumgarner didn't have his velocity - he was in the low 90s - but he needed to hit his spots.

Class A hitters are notoriously free from random thoughts that clutter the mind. Several years ago an A's pitcher was sent down to an A ball team to rehab an injury. Asked how it went, he was exasperated.

“They're so dumb they don't even know they're being set up,” he complained.

He said he'd jam the batter with the heater, then surprise him with an off-speed pitch. Instead of being fooled, the lizard brain of the young hitter would think, “Hey, there's a slow one,” and hit a double off the wall.

This all means that Monday's rehab start will be critical. But if there is a place where Bumgarner feels comfortable it is San Jose's Municipal Stadium. The team puckishly revived a 2009 photo of the 19-year-old Bumgarner, jug-eared and literally wide-eyed, from when he was pitching for the team.

He was just a big kid then, out of South Caldwell High School in Hudson, North Carolina.

“It was being away from home for the first time,” he recalled. “That seems like a long time ago.”

The fans remembered, selling out the place - more than 4,000 tickets. Combined with a Fourth of July crowd the night before, that made two consecutive sellouts. When was the last time that happened?

“I have no idea,” said media coordinator Jeff Black.

They came for MadBum, but they stayed for the standard A ball sideshows. Between innings they got up and waved their arms to “YMCA” and watched a guy try to chip a golf ball into wading pool.

And right before the fourth inning, a kid was given four chances to lob a paper roll into a commode placed next to first base. His last toss went into the toilet - right before the game did.

Those minor league days must have been good times for Bumgarner.

He was young, strong as a horse and his future was ahead of him. No one would have predicted three world championships and a laundry list of individual awards.

And no one would have predicted that a moment of carelessness would put it all in jeopardy.

Contact C.W. Nevius at cw.nevius@pressdemocrat.com. Twitter: @cwnevius.