I missed Christy Mathewson somehow but caught almost everyone else, down the years—Lefty Grove, Carl Hubbell, Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson, Jack Morris, Curt Schilling, Randy Johnson—but here was the best. Madison Bumgarner, the Giants’ left-handed ace, coming on in relief last night in the fifth inning of the deciding seventh game of this vibrant World Series, gave up a little opening single, then retired fourteen straight Kansas City batters, gave up another hit, and then closed the deal. The Giants won, 3–2, claiming their third World Championship in five years. It was almost his third victory of this Series—the scorers had it that way for a time, then gave the W back to Jeremy Affeldt, the left-handed reliever who was still the pitcher of record when the Giants went ahead in the fourth. Bumgarner, who lost a game along the way, in the Divisionals, on a little throwing error of his own, winds up at 4-1 for his October. He had won a game in each of the Giants’ World Championships, in 2012 and 2010, and now, at twenty-five, stands at 4-0 in the classic, with an earned-run average of 0.25. He was pitching on two days’ rest but also on manna: possibly the best October pitcher of them all.

Sure, we can talk about this: we’ve got all winter. Christy Mathewson threw three shutout victories for the Giants in the 1905 World Series, and won two more games (while losing five) in the Series of 1910, 1911, and 1912, but, as Matty would point out if he were here—he was famous for his fairness—even at his best he would not fare well against the enormous, toned-up athletes of our day.

Bumgarner, who went 18-10 for the Giants this year, is a star commodity, of course, but he’s been a bit eclipsed by the Dodgers’ great Clayton Kershaw, who will pick up his third Cy Young Award next week, after a 21-3 summer. It’s their post-seasons that set them apart. Kershaw lost two games to the Cardinals in the National League Championships last year, and, excruciatingly, did the very same thing again against the same team in the Divisionals this time around. It’s beyond explanation, a dislodged Lego piece from the gods.

I don’t know what it felt like watching Mathewson pitch, but watching Bumgarner is like feeling an expertly administered epidural nip in between a couple of vertebrae and deliver bliss: it’s a gliding, almost eventless slide through the innings, with accumulating fly-ball outs and low-count K’s marking the passing scenery. It’s twilight sleep; an Ambien catnap; an evening voyage on a Watteau barge. Bumgarner is composed out there, his expression mournful, almost apologetic, even while delivering his wide-wing, slinging stuff. Sorry, guys: this is how it goes. Over soon.

The sparse action came early: Two runs by the Giants in the second matched by the Royals’ pair in the bottom half, with three of the runs coming home on sacrifice flies. The go-ahead scored on a single by the Giants’ d.h. Michael Morse, who raised a fist running up the line as he saw the ball fall free. Edgy stuff, with both of the starting pitchers—the Giants’ Tim Hudson and K.C.’s Jeremy Guthrie—gone just after three. Baseball action just now is all pitching and defense, and the play of the day came with no outs and a K.C. runner on first base in the third inning, when the Giant second baseman Joe Panik made a starboard dive for Eric Hosmer’s streaking bouncer, which he somehow arrested while on his belly, then flipped the ball out of his mitt to shortstop Brandon Crawford, who threw to first in time for the double play. In time in time: the second out was reviewed in replay for almost three minutes via the new appeal option. But this was a seventh game and never felt slow, and for entertainment we had Pablo Sandoval, the Giants’ Kung Fu Panda or Flying Porpoise, who was walked on a hit by pitch and hit a double and two singles, and rushed from second to third in the fourth after a fly-ball out to left, bouncing on his belly in the dirt. He made the last out of the season, catching a harmless pop in foul ground and falling backward to the turf, splayed there in his delight.

I’ll miss him and his champion teammates, along with every one of the losing but exemplary young Royals—strangers to me all but now memorized for the winter and beyond: a wonderful bunch. If they had won this, and not the Giants, my plan for this space was to revisit that astounding, winner-take-all, wild-card playoff game that started everything off for them: a game in which they stole seven bases, and in which they trailed the Oakland Athletics by 7–3 in the eighth inning, by 7–6 in the ninth, by 8–7 in the twelfth, and won at last in the bottom of the twelfth, 9–8, repeatedly convincing themselves along the way of their own brilliance and saving a ticket for us to these sweet autumn entertainments.

I don’t know how to bring this up, but attention must be paid, as Mrs. Willy Loman used to say. In the last line of my pre-World Series post here, I startled myself with a prediction: the Giants, because of their bullpen, would win this in seven. Yes, exactly so—and who now wants to step up with a wayd-a-minnit objection, claiming that Madison Bumgarner, though he actually emerged from there—we saw him—did not exactly represent the Giants’ bullpen last night? Eat my shorts.