Madison Bumgarner, Bruce Hurst, and the Shortest World Series MVP in History

Baseball can be a cruel game. Madison Bumgarner has put the Giants in a position to win a World Series with two absolutely dominant performances in Games 1 and 5. It may not be enough, and he will likely have to take the mound again tonight in the “all hands on deck” decisive Game 7. All those prior pitches may not matter, if he doesn’t finish it off (and it may be out of his hands even if he does come in and pitch.)

To this point, Bumgarner is the clear World Series MVP–and he still might be regardless of the outcome of tonight’s game. In 1986, Boston Red Sox left-hander Bruce Hurst put up a similar performance in games 1 and 5, and was ticketed for history as the World Series MVP in Boston’s first World Series title since 1918. They even took a vote in the press box with Boston ahead by two runs and appearing ready to win: Bruce Hurst was MVP.

“I was the shortest World Series MVP in history,” Hurst told the Big Lead. Up until that fateful twist that tied Bill Buckner’s name to World Series lore, Hurst was going to be the clear MVP choice. He had thrown 17 innings and given up only two runs against the Mets’ powerful lineup, including throwing a complete game in Game 5 to give the Red Sox the series lead. (Bumgarner is at 2-0 with 1 ER in 16 IP.)

I thought it might be good to get his perspective on what it was like to pitch again in Game 7, and how Bumgarner might be used tonight. Hurst ended up starting Game 7 after rain postponed it from Sunday to Monday night, allowing him to throw on three days’ rest.

“Dennis Eckersley when I played had one of the greatest lines for a pitcher ever,” Hurst said, “and it was just a great mantra, and his line was ‘you’ve got to remember that you’re always one pitch away from greatness, and one pitch away from humility all the time. It’s a razor-thin line.”

Hurst threw five more scoreless innings, allowing only one hit, at the start of Game 7 as Boston jumped to a 3-0 lead. Then he gave up that one hit that went from greatness to humility, when Keith Hernandez hit a 3-1 pitch with bases loaded in the 6th to left field. The Mets had scratched to load the bases, and Hernandez’ hit made it a 3-2 game. The Mets eventually tied it on a fielder’s choice that landed in front of Dwight Evans in right, scoring Wally Backman (Evans forced out Hernandez on the short throw to second).

I asked Hurst how it felt to go from pitching in that momentous game to then being done for the Series, exiting after the inning with the game tied at 3.

“It was hard. You know, they just kind of unloaded on us a little bit. Straw (Darryl Strawberry) hit a monster home run and they put a couple of innings together. For me, I felt like I let the team down, we had a three run lead, it’s game 7. The only saving grace is that we weren’t losing, and we had to play three more innings, and win those innings, and we just couldn’t.”

I also asked Hurst about how he was able to get up for those World Series starts, and I think his answer is worth posting in full:

"At the end of the season for me, we played Toronto, and I had to pitch a game, and if we won we clinched a tie, so we were guaranteed at least a playoff game. And for me, I remember going to bed at night, and I told my wife, ‘this will be the first time in my life that I’ll really see if I can do this. It kind of had that playoff atmosphere, the game had meaning–it wasn’t Game 7 of the World Series–and I had a good game and we won. It gave me the confidence to know that I could pitch there. Game 1 and Game 5, the World Series is such a bigger stage, there’s so much more going on, there’s more media, so much more commotion around the game. But when I got on the mound in Game 1, and I’m warming up in the bullpen–and all the Mets fans are doing what Mets fans do, yelling and screaming and calling you and all that stuff–and when I got on the mound, I look down and there’s Richard Gedman my catcher, and I throw my warmup pitches and he throws it down to Marty and they throw it around the horn and I get it back from Boggsy, and the world just felt normal. It felt so comfortable to me, everything was so familiar, and you kind of forget about all the circumstances and the consequences and everything that is going on before the game.”"

So how does Hurst think the Giants should use Bumgarner in Game 7? He’s deferring to some old friends who are actually going to have to make that call.

“I think Bruce Bochy and Dave Righetti are two of the brightest baseball guys that we’ve had, what they’ve done over the years, I don’t think it gets enough press,” Hurst said. “I played against Righetti, and ‘Boch’ was one of my coaches when I was in San Diego, and I just have the highest regard for those guys, along with third base coach Tim Flannery, who I also played with in San Diego. And I think they just have such a good grasp of their team and the best way to use them, so I’m sure they will put him in a position to be successful.”

Hurst did say that it would be not out of the normal to use today as a throwing day anyway for Bumgarner, so he wouldn’t be too far off his routine. “Anywhere between 25 and 40, 50 would be a lot” for an off day throwing session, according to Hurst. So I asked him if Bumgarner, who said he was ready to throw 200 pitches if necessary, could go 2-3 innings.

“That wouldn’t be any problem for him at all. It’s Game 7 of the World Series. It’s all hands on deck–it’s an old cliché, but it applies, you go as long as you can, as hard as you can. You give them whatever you have to give, and you give it to the team. You just leave it all out there. The old adage is you have all winter to rest.”

It didn’t pan out that way because the rainout allowed him to start in 1986, but I asked Hurst if he preferred to come in as a reliever in a fire situation, or to start a clean inning.

“For me, I would rather start an inning. That was my own personal thing, I never had that kind of overpowering stuff where I could come in and overmatch somebody. It was more of a chess game for me, so I would rather start an inning. I didn’t have that explosive fastball that Bumgarner has, I didn’t throw in the mid-90’s.”

That’s the decision that Bochy and Righetti face tonight. Is it Bumgarner at the first sign of trouble? Or do they bring in Petit or Romo or even closer Santiago Casilla into a relief situation with men on base, to get out of the jam earlier than they normally would, and then hand the ball to Bumgarner after that and say, “go get us three more.”

Greatness may be hinging on that decision, and whether Bumgarner can do it again.