SAN FRANCISCO -- If only they could all be like Madison Bumgarner this time of year. And by "they," you know who we mean.

David Price, Max Scherzer, Rick Porcello, Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels and Rich Hill are a combined 0-6 in this fascinating postseason -- after going 93-35 during the regular season. Clayton Kershaw won for just the second time in his past eight postseason starts, but he made it through only five ho-hum innings. And we're not even going to get into Jeff Samardzija and Colby Lewis.

We've always looked at October as that month when the aces take over. The way Sanford B. Koufax did. The way P. Robert Gibson did. The way John Smoltz and Curt Schilling and Jack Morris did. The way even Josh Beckett did.

But maybe we don't live in a world where that's as easy to accomplish anymore. Maybe there's too much attention, too much pressure, too much information. Maybe we've set the bar too high -- because what we've always expected of The Aces is not what they've been delivering.

Now if you've watched MadBum work his magic -- and you can watch Bumgarner again Monday night, in a riveting National League Division Series Game 3 mano a mano with Jake Arrieta at AT&T Park -- you might wonder what the heck we're even talking about. But look around at the rest of the sport and you'll find something incredible.

Twelve active pitchers have won a Cy Young Award and pitched in the postseason over the course of their careers. Just five of them even have a winning postseason record. Kershaw is 3-6 with a 4.65 October ERA. Price is 2-8, 5.54 -- and 0-8 as a starting pitcher.

How can this be possible? It feels like a phenomenon that defies explanation. So naturally, we went looking to find one anyway. And here's what we learned: It's complicated.

"It's not a blanket statement," said Smoltz, a man who went 15-4 with a 2.67 ERA in his postseason career, with more postseason strikeouts (199) than any pitcher in history. "There are different reasons."

Those reasons can be found inside the heads of the men on the mound -- not to mention inside their hearts, inside their deliveries, inside their own unique set of circumstances. Sometimes, actually, it's all of the above. But let's start with a fact that holds true for everyone:

October baseball is different. Every element involved in it is different.

"Everything's a rally in the postseason," Smoltz said. "Umpires have every pressure and detail, and all the eyes are on them. Strike zones get a little bit interesting. Hitters don't take pitches or at-bats off like they do during the regular season. There's a lot that goes into that bucket. But the bottom line is, if you're mentally not ready for that moment, your success rate won't be as good."

Smoltz was a man who fed off those moments. Even now, he misses them so much. He still finds himself saying, "I loved it. I wish there was more of it." But when he looks at some of the men who take the mound in these games nowadays, he says, "Some people in our game don't quite grasp that like they should."

Clayton Kershaw's postseason struggles are more representative of what the non-Bumgarners have been delivering. Brad Mangin/MLB Photos via Getty Images

But even if you agree, does it make any sense that pitchers of the stature of Kershaw and Price wouldn't be mentally ready for the biggest games of their lives? Think of all they've accomplished. Think of how mentally strong they've had to be just to reach this standing in the game.

So can this really all be in their heads? One longtime pitching coach doesn't think so.

"Take a look at the deliveries of Kershaw and Price -- versus Bumgarner's," he said. "Quick jerk versus easy, fluid. Most times, that [delivery reflects] their personality as well."

So what this coach is saying is that both Kershaw and Price have a delivery that might not be made to order for this time of year -- because that voice in their head, that motor in their veins and that thumping in their heart are driving them to rush, to lurch, to go faster in games where nothing is more important than the ability to stay slow and under control. In other words, their personality just might be overriding their delivery.

"It makes it harder to repeat," this pitching coach said. "Adrenaline is the hardest thing to control in sport. ... I watch them, and I see them try to go to another gear way more often than normal."

One American League executive said he believes that's an especially big problem in Price's case. He's so amped up to do something special in these moments, he has trouble slowing down the game when he needs to most.

"That's what I would see from afar, too," Smoltz said, "without knowing anything other than he's very passionate. Look, he's a slow worker, very methodical, pitches 230 innings. He's your prototypical front-line guy. But come postseason, there is a capacity to maybe care too much and want to do too well and not slow the game down."

In Kershaw's case, said an National League exec, it has never been about stuff. It has been that "he sped up as things got rolling in a bad way." Anyone who has seen Kershaw up close knows he's motivated to be great, and to lift up his team. But the same people also wonder whether all that caring has taken a toll -- especially at times like these. And Smoltz wonders himself.

"Clayton Kershaw has basically pitched a playoff game in every single game for the last three years," Smoltz said, "because every single regular-season game has put him at a level where he doesn't give up anything. So imagine being Clayton Kershaw, and if you give up three runs in a game, people are like, 'What's wrong?' So he's put up a standard that is unprecedented.

"Because of that, when he gets to the end of the year, I would argue that he's a little more mentally fried than most. So now, when that time comes and you're trying to carry your ball club, it's not like he's just getting crushed. It's one or two innings that have defined him -- against one team."

That team, of course, is the St. Louis Cardinals, who beat him four times in back-to-back Octobers (in 2013 and '14), scoring 19 runs off him in 22 ⅔ innings. In between, all the other teams in baseball beat him three times in the entire regular 2014 season, when he was busy going 21-3 with a 1.77 ERA.

A number of scouts and executives said they're convinced that Kershaw tipped pitches out of the stretch in those games, especially against left-handed hitters. And the Cardinals were all over that. Take away those four losses to St. Louis, and in his five other postseason starts since 2013, Kershaw has gone 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA. His only loss was to the New York Mets last October, in a game in which he still struck out 11 and gave up just four hits.

Nevertheless, it feels as if there is a quality in Bumgarner that no one else in this sport can match right now. And even the manager of the team that has to face him Monday can't help but admire it. On Sunday, Chicago Cubs manager Joe Maddon unabashedly compared Bumgarner to the likes of Gibson and Koufax. And Maddon wasn't only talking about the quality of those pitches exploding out of Bumgarner's left arm.

"It's not just purely his stuff," Maddon said. "It's his competitive nature. I think that's what gets lost in this a lot, with what we do. Everybody's always analyzing numbers and pitches and how he does this and spin rotation and whatever. This guy competes. That's what sets him apart. It's not that his stuff is that special. It's really good. But how he competes is what sets him apart."

Bumgarner's postseason success is so unique among this generation. He really should start bottling cases of MadBum's Miracle October Elixir -- he'd make more money than Mark Zuckerberg. But first, he has another postseason baseball game to pitch, a reputation to uphold and one more heart-thumping October evening to remind the world of what aces used to look like this time of year.