Despite the fact that Madison Bumgarner and the Giants got bombshelled by the Royals 15-3 on Friday night, continuing a nasty late spring training slide, things aren't as bad as they seem.
Maybe.
Bumgarner's line shouldn't have been as bad as it was -- breezing through two innings with three strikeouts a slew of filthy-looking breaking balls.
Then the fourth inning happened, and the wheels kind of fell off. A Brandon Belt throwing error on a pickoff attempt (no, he's not helping his cause to hang around the bigs), led to Melky Cabrera crossing home plate, which led to Alex Gordon smoking a double to right center which led to Bumgarner somehow hanging one for Jeff Franceour ... and then suddenly there were four runs on the board.
After that, Bumgarner seemed to lose his concentration after that, hanging balls high and over the plate, and, a four-run fifth that also featured a Gordon extra-base hit later, all of a sudden the young lefty had a nightmare start on his hands.
That's how it happens in baseball, and there's no real way to defend an eight-earned-run outing, but Bumgarner at least had good stuff on Friday night. So there's that.
"I don't want to read too much into it yet. If we get into the season and this is still happening, I'll have to do something about it," Bumgarner said.
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The bigger issue is that the pitching staff's been lit up all week -- Barry Zito's the only starter this week that's produced any sort of palatable statline.
"It's been a rough week. We know it," Manager Bruce Bochy said. "You don't like to see it this time of year. You're going to go through these times in the spring."
Go ahead and knock Santiago Casilla off the would-be closer list, too -- the relief pitcher coughed up five earned runs on his own -- included four walks -- in just two-thirds of an inning.
On the bright side of things, Miggy Tejada looked good defensively once again, so there's always that.
The offense is probably the biggest concern right now -- Tejada and Sandoval seemed to find some life on Friday, but it's just inexcusable to leave 25 runners on base.
And it's something that's gonna need to get fixed pretty quick, unless the pitching staff can correct whatever issues it's dealing with at the moment.
