PITTSBURGH – The San Francisco Giants milled about their clubhouse Wednesday afternoon, engaging in the usual time-killing activities that are part and parcel of a baseball season, when an interloper interrupted. It was Madison Bumgarner, the Giants’ ace and starting pitcher in the National League wild-card game, and he just wanted to tell the clutch of relief pitchers they shouldn’t bother getting loose, because he planned on pitching all nine innings and sending the Giants into the National League Division Series. And that was that.

Bumgarner strolled off, like it was typical for a pitcher to stare at a game of such import with the nonchalance of a nihilist. Because for him, it pretty much is the norm, not arrogance as much as the personification of self-awareness.

“He just wanted to let us know,” Giants reliever Jeremy Affeldt said. “He was being courteous.”

Not only is Bumgarner fully conscious of who he is – an unapologetic son of North Carolina who once gave his wife a cow for her birthday – he is at peace with his mound alter ego, a snarling, snot rocket-launching presence who at 25 years old is just realizing how great he can be.

Greatness, of course, comes in many forms. One could argue that a grown man chugging four cans of beer at a time, as Bumgarner did during the Giants’ raucous celebration late Wednesday night, constitutes a special sort of greatness. The more traditional definition belongs to what spurred the festivities: Bumgarner fulfilling his promise, twirling a dazzling nine innings and booking the 130th shutout in playoff history as San Francisco walloped the Pittsburgh Pirates, 8-0.

Over 109 pitches, Bumgarner struck out 10, allowed four hits, walked one and short-circuited a record PNC Park crowd of 40,629 that hosted a second consecutive wild-card game to far worse results than the first. Bumgarner played the culprit and spoiler for a Pittsburgh team that faltered following a fourth-inning grand slam by Giants shortstop Brandon Crawford. For the Giants, he was dream weaver and salvation, every bit the pitcher of his elite peers whose Q ratings are higher, if not their effectiveness.

“He don’t come with a lot of flair,” Giants starting pitcher Tim Hudson said, “but he goes out there and sticks it right up your butt.”

The anatomical impossibility of such a maneuver, not to mention the potential illegality, showcases Bumgarner’s ability to inspire the sort of hyperbole that only the elite can. And to call him anything else – anything short of the group that includes Clayton Kershaw and Felix Hernandez and Max Scherzer and David Price and Chris Sale – would sell short the sort of pitcher Bumgarner has become.

For years, he toiled behind Tim Lincecum and Matt Cain, an apprentice to their mastery, watching, waiting, learning and all the while picking up a pair of World Series rings with 15 shutout innings across two starts. Bumgarner said it almost came by accident, which may be the happiest accident since Fleming stumbled upon penicillin. “Pretty good for not knowing what he was doing,” Giants catcher Buster Posey said.

Now that he does, Bumgarner carves up lineups with fastballs and sliders, the former a pitch with which he could splat a fly if so instructed and the latter a mean, nasty biter, a shark in horsehide clothing. Stake him four runs in a game, as Crawford did Wednesday with his shot off Pirates starter Edinson Volquez, and the sentiment Bumgarner spread pregame found more and more adopters.

“After that ball went over the fence, game over,” Hudson said. “You’ve got Bum out there with a four-run lead. The way he was throwing the ball, I didn’t give a damn. We were going to spray some Champagne.”

Amid the celebration, Larry Baer, the Giants’ CEO, walked over to Bumgarner and said: “We’ve got three more of these, baby. Three more of these to go.” By which he meant NLDS, NLCS and World Series. The proclamation was bold, particularly with these Giants lacking the depth and talent of their NLDS opponent, the Washington Nationals, but then the same was said of their 2010 and 2012 teams, and Bumgarner’s jewelry is the finest counterargument to any lingering doubts about the Giants’ capacity to overcome something as seminal as ability.

Madison Bumgarner enjoys the spoils of his dominant victory. (AP) More

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