Bumgarner Rocked Early in 12-3 loss to Padres

Early home runs lead to insurmountable deficit

© Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Madison Bumgarner's long second half slump continued in a 12-3 loss to the San Diego Padres. He allowed five runs on eight hits, including three home runs. His record dropped to 6-15 and his ERA ballooned to 5.01

Brandon Drury hit a two run homer in the first inning and a solo shot in the fourth inning. Austin Nola hit a home run in the 2nd inning as well. Bumgarner has now given up eight homers in each of the first two innings this year, and 42 runs overall.  No pitcher in baseball has allowed more home runs in the first two innings, and only two have allowed more runs, Patrick Corbin and Dallas Keuchel. 

Torey Lovullo said after the game that Bumgarner will continue to make his starts in the rotation for the rest of the season, stating "Bum is Bum", and he'll take the ball every fifth or sixth day. Lovullo also spoke about the team's need to make statements early game statements. But clearly Bumgarner has been unable to do so.

The pattern has been the same all year: Bumgarner puts his team in a hole, which they're unable to dig out of.  The Diamondbacks are now 11-18 in games he's started. 

As has often been the case the offense tends to flatten out in face of all the hard contact and early runs allowed. Tonight was no exception. Padres starter Blake Snell shut down the Diamondbacks for seven innings, giving up just four hits and one run and striking out seven. The lone run against Snell came on a solo homer by Christian Walker in the fourth inning. Walker also tacked on a two run shot in the bottom of the ninth with the game out of reach, his 34th of the year. 

While there have been a couple of instances where the team has come back to score a lot of runs after Bumgarner has left a game, when he is in the game the offense often goes silent. One measure of this is RS/IP, which is runs scored per 27 outs while the pitcher is in the game, as provided by Baseball-reference.com. 

Baseball-reference.com

The D-backs also ran themselves out of a scoring opportunity in the bottom of the first. Stone Garrett led off the inning with a double and Emmanuel Rivera reached on an error. But Garrett got picked off second base and Manny Machado made a leaping catch on a line drive from Ketel Marte to snuff out the threat.

Adding insult to injury, the bullpen did the team no favors in this game either, allowing six more runs to score before Torey Lovullo ran up the white flag and called on catcher Carson Kelly to pitch in the rout.

Game three of the four game series is Saturday night at 5:10 P.M. MST.  Zac Gallen 12-2, 2.50 ERA will go against Joe Musgrove 9-7, 3.28 ERA