8/9/08-Augusta @ Greensboro

I have waited all year for my schedule to allow me to see Madison Bumgarner pitch. It finally happened Saturday night. Thanks to a heads up from commonsnse I made it. There were a lot of people there to watch Madison pitch. His family, scouts and media and me. He started off doing some long toss in RF....
Then he headed to the bullpen where there were a bunch of people hanging over the rail watching him throw. The other guys in the bullpen appeared taken aback at all the attention Madison was getting.

He started off the game pretty poorly. If it weren't for a pickoff and foul bunt the Grasshoppers would have gotten some runs. He ended up throwing eight scoreless innings and he settled down to retire the last fifteen guys he faced which is pretty fucking impressive. I was sitting right behind the Greenjackets dugout so I had a really good view of him pitching. The stadium radar gun, which worked Thursday night, was not working Saturday night. So, I decided to move amongst all the scouts sitting directly behind home plate. His fastball sat 92-94 all night long. The highest reading I saw on a gun was 94, but there were probably some 95s or 96s mixed in there. In the bullpen he threw three pitches, a fastball, slider and change. In the game he threw mostly fastballs, but he did use the slider somewhat. He has great control with his fastball and moves it all over the strike zone. He got some generous calls from the ump, but that is what happens when you are around the zone all night. He looked a lot more comfortable using the slider against LH batters. It is obviously a pitch that is a work in progress. He didn't get many swings and misses with it and most guys made pretty solid contact with it. The pitch is inconsistent and is more of a slurve than a slider. Sometimes it would sweep through the zone sharply and other times it tumbled and was flat. The kid needs time to work on the pitch.

I am not a scout by any means, so my opinion should be taken as such. There were Baseball America people sitting all around me, so I will be interested to see what they have to say about Bumgarner. I would say that I advocate taking it slow with him as he still has a lot of work to do with his off speed stuff. We will see what happens...