Madison Bumgarner Stakes Claim to World Series MVP Award

Barring dramatic developments over the last two games, you can go ahead and stamp Madison Bumgarner’s name on the 2014 World Series MVP trophy. The San Francisco Giants ace has simply dominate the Series against the Kansas City Royals and, with apologies to teammate Hunter Pence, the MVP race is not particularly close.

The Royals came barreling into the World Series (even though they had a week off after the ALCS) without a loss since the regular season and looked like one of those baseball unicorns — a Team of Destiny.

The KC ToD ran into a buzz saw in Game 1, though, and when the Giants jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, Bumgarner shutdown the Royals for nearly seven full innings. The only blemish was a two-out homer in the seventh to catcher Salvador Perez.

The Royals then got their destiny train back on track, taking Games 2 and 3, with a chance to put the Series out of reach on Saturday, but San Fran feasted on a tired Kansas City bullpen and some funny calls by manager Ned Yost.

Last night, in the Giants’ last home game of 2014, Kansas City could have put the ball in their court heading home for Games 6 and 7, but they ran up against, yes, Madison Bumgarner again.

And he was even more exquisite in Game 5 than he was in Game 1, pitching a complete-game four-hitter while striking out eight and allowing zero walks.

The Royals didn’t have any sort of chance last night.

If San Francisco wraps up the Series in KC on Tuesday night, Bumgarner is the MVP.

If Kansas City forces a Game 7, we’re probably going to see Bumgarner again. With only two full days’ rest between Game 5 and Game 7, it’s unlikely that he’ll start, but you can bet he’ll be in the bullpen ready to warm up at the first sign of trouble.

At this point, it seems virtually impossible that the Royals can win Game 6 and overcome more of Bumgarner in Game 7, but the man would be pitching on very short rest, relief outing or no.  Should Kansas City get to Bumgarner again and squeeze some runs from his well-used arm, then we might have to reconsider the race for MVP.

As it stands now, though, and in most scenarios that seem likely for Tuesday and Wednesday, Madison Bumgarner is our 2014 World Series MVP.