San Francisco Giants need to be realistic about Tim Lincecum as his struggles continue by Vince Cestone

Jun 28, 2015; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner (40) rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run against the Colorado Rockies during the seventh inning at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Bob Stanton-USA TODAY Sports

It kind of felt like Madison Bumgarner Day at the yard. There’s good reason for that—in the top of the second inning, Bumgarner recorded his 1,000th strikeout, the youngest pitcher in San Francisco Giants franchise history to reach that milestone.

Kruk and Kuip are always talking about how great Bumgarner is at the plate. And I wondered: How does his hitting stack up against other major league pitchers? I decided to look it up.

Bumgarner ranks number one in home runs with two on the season—including his solo shot in the seventh inning today—and leads in total bases with 14. He’s tied for number two in runs scored with four, and total hits with eight. Another category where Bumgarner lands on number two is in total number of pitches thrown during his plate appearances with 143. The only pitcher who has made the opponents work harder is LA Dodgers’ Clayton Kershaw with 161.

Turns out, he is very good.

Bumgarner left after recording two outs in the eighth. When manager Bruce Bochy left the dugout to take the ball, the fans were on their feet giving the lefty a well-deserved standing ovation before Bochy even reached the mound. I’ll second that.

MadBum put together a great outing: he pitched 7 2/3 innings and gave up two run on five hits and two walks. He struck out eight on his way to the milestone.

Speaking of very good, how about Matt Duffy? A fan showed up at the park today with a sign that read: “Never fear, the DuffMan is here.” Kruk agreed, making sure the TV audience saw the sign. And you know what? That fan was absolutely right.

Duffy came very close to hitting for the cycle with a triple in the first, a double in the third and a home run in the sixth. When Duffy hit the ball to far right in the seventh, we all held our breath (or at least I did), but the ball was ruled foul, the call was upheld on review, and Duffy’s chance for the cycle ended—this time.

The Giants, known for their hits in bunches, switched it up in Sunday’s game with home runs in batches as Brandon Crawford hit another solo homer in the sixth, making it the second of the three off Giants bats in Sunday’s game.

The Rockies scored three runs, including two home runs from third baseman Nolan Arenado. He hit a two-run homer off Bumgarner in the first and a solo shot off Sergio Romo to open up the ninth. Santiago Casilla entered the game to close it out after that and notched the save. The final score was: Giants 6, Rockies 3

Saturday’s hero, Andrew Susac, got the day off, leaving Buster Posey to do the job–Buster added three more RBIs to give him a total of 53 on the year, 26 of them in the month of June alone. I guess someone forgot to tell Buster to swoon.

