Inside your heart, there are cockles. Inside those cockles, there is another heart. Inside the smaller heart, there are more cockles. Let me show you something, then, that will warm the cockles inside the heart inside the cockles of your heart. This is Madison Bumgarner throwing a baseball:

This is also Bumgarner throwing a baseball:

And while just the sight of this fuzzy tree-man hero throwing baseballs again is fun, here’s something that makes me feel even better: Bumgarner smiling after throwing a baseball.

If it felt like there were allen wrenches stuck in his shoulder, if the pain was shooting through his entire nervous system, there would not be smiles. The road back is still long and complicated, but if you’re looking for progress, it’s evident.

Alex Pavlovic has more details:

The Giants had planned to have Bumgarner play catch Friday in Philadelphia, but he threw about 45 soft pitches in front of the team’s trainers, physical therapist and coaches. “He’s been doing so well he wanted to bump it up and the training staff said (he could),” manager Bruce Bochy said. “He came out of it pretty good.”

Will he be ready for the postseason? Technically! Which is to say, it looks like we will see him back for this season, which will end on October 1, around 3:05 p.m. PT.

At the risk of being a downer, I’d like to point out that even when he’s back on the mound, there will be weeks, if not months, of weirdness, in which we’re all scrambling around and frantically evaluating every misstep through a shoulder-shaped prism. When he walks four and gives up five runs in six innings, the only reason you won’t be screaming, “IS THIS BECAUSE OF THE SHOULDER?” is because you’ll be mumbling it under your breath, alone in the dark. Trust me, it’ll be a bunch of fun.

For now, though, we have the hope of a future that’s better than the present. In the present, the Giants are losing a bunch, and they don’t have Madison Bumgarner. In the future, they might still be losing a bunch, but at least they’ll have Madison Bumgarner.

I’ll take that future scenario, thank you very much. And we’re a little bit closer.