Madison Bumgarner takes home 2014 NLCS MVP honors

The announcement of the National League Championship Series MVP left fans, players and coaches with their mouths gaping own in surprise, or not. The NLCS MVP was actually pretty standard in comparison to the annoucement of the American League Chanpionship Series MVP award.

Oct 15, 2014; Kansas City, MO, USA; Kansas City Royals center fielder

celebrates with the series MVP trophy after game four of the 2014 ALCS playoff baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles at Kauffman Stadium. The Royals swept the Orioles to advance to the World Series. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Of course during the Kansas City Royals sweep of the Baltimore Orioles in the 2014 ALCS there were so many heroes that it was to hard to mentally keep track of who had actually put up the best perfromance. It could have been Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas or Billy Butler but the award went to a new star who had now made him name on the big stage: Lorenzo Cain.

The annoucement of the  award for the NLCS MVP was quite the opposite. There were not a lot of standout performances from the Giants. Many of their offensive perforances were rather lackluster and quite a few of their runs were not due to clutch hitting but the mistakes of the other team.

I guess the award could have gone to Travis Ishikawa (who? exactly!) for hitting the game five winning home run that actually sent the Giants to their thrid World Series in five seasons.

And while yes, the relatively unknown outfielder had contributed enough that I know, remember and can spell his name, it doesn’t necessarily add up to winning the MVP of the series.

Possibly it could have gone to Pablo Sandoval hit .353 with six hits, two of them doubles. Yet when it finally came down to make a decision that decision was pretty simple.

The 2014 NLCS MVP award went to starting pitcher, the Giants’ ace Madison Bumgarner.

Yes, the guy who committed the blatant and now famous “un-called balk” during the his NLCS game one start that would have put the St. Louis Cardinals on the board and allowed the innning to continue.

However, Cardinals’ manager Mike Matheny had already, used and lost , his only challenge which makes the fact that Bumgarner did balk on the play a completely moot point.

Besides that one blemish on his two starting performances, Madison Bumgarner was stellar and certainly the standout player among the Giants team.

Oct 16, 2014; San Francisco, CA, USA; San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Madison Bumgarner (40) is awarded the NLCS MVP after defeating the St. Louis Cardinals in game five of the 2014 NLCS playoff at AT&T Park. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

In game one Bumgarner held the Cardinals scoreless through 7.2 innings allowing just fours hits and one walk while striking out seven batters.On short rest Bumgarner started game four in amazing fashion as well.

Despite giving up a pair of home runs in the fourth inning,  throwing a hanging a 78 mph curveball in front of Matt Adams and allowing Tony Cruz to send an 88 mph slider out of the yard in left field. Bumgarner put up his second stellar start with just a couple days rest in between.

Bumgarner pitched all the way through the seventh, pitching eight full innings while allowing just five hits, three runs, three walks and striking out five Cardinals batters, leading the Giants to a 6-3 series clinching win.

While Bumgarners stats were above the average pitcher in both starts., they weren’t comparable to pitching a complete game or even a complete game shutout.

However, without a lot of major standout performances by Giants’ players and most certainly without Bumganrer’s two performances, the Giants would not be headed to Kansas City for game one of the 2014 World Series, making Madison Bumgarner most certainly the most valuable player of the 2014 NLCS.