Can one pitcher carry a team to the World Series title?

In the World Series, the San Francisco Giants are 2-0 when Madison Bumgarner has started and 1-2 when anyone else has.

Since the start of the National League Championship Series, the Giants are 4-0 when Bumgarner starts and 3-3 when anyone else has.

The Giants have played 15 postseason games and Bumgarner has started six times.

That begs these questions: Can a team ride one ace pitcher to the World Series title? Is that fair?

With off-days during playoff series and now several days off between series that end short of going the full five and/or seven games, a team like the Giants can have Bumgarner start six of 15 games. During the regular season, this would not happen.

Bumgarner is 4-1 with a 1.13 ERA and 0.67 WHIP in the postseason. The rest of the Giants starters have a modest ERA of 4.57 this postseason.

The Giants are a good team, but right now they are riding the back of one outstanding pitcher. If they win the World Series, Bumgarner will be responsible for half of their eight wins in the NLCS and World Series.

The Giants look unbeatable when the lefty is on the mound during these playoffs, but during the regular season, they went only 20-13 in his starts for a winning percentage of .606. By comparison, the Orioles went 24-10 in Chris Tillman's starts for a winning percentage of .706.

I digress here, but how about Bumgarner's World Series record? He is 4-0 with an ERA of 0.29 in four career starts, allowing 12 hits in 31 innings. That is the best ERA ever among pitchers with 25 or more World Series innings.

While we are digressing here, let's point out that history says the Royals are very much alive in the World Series. Since 1982, teams down 3-2 and going home for Games 6 and 7 have won eight of 10 World Series - and that includes the Royals in 1985.

The postseason off-days benefit good pitching - even, say, the Kansas City bullpen. Their big three in the 'pen of Kelvin Herrera, Wade Davis and Greg Holland could pretty much pitch in every series game when they get two off-days during that stretch.

The Giants won 88 games in the regular season. Seven teams, including Kansas City, won more. But they have ridden a hot hand on the mound to within a win of the World Series title.

Is that fair? I say it is. These are the rules and you play short series in the postseason. Anyone can be a hero during such a small sample size.

The off-days make it possible to pitch your No. 1 guy more this time of the year and for the Giants, that is working out really well.

Finally, I hope everyone here keeps in mind that you can make comments about the Orioles or baseball in general at all times here. The topic of this entry was Bumgarner, but you can comment here on what contract terms you think might be a fit for Nick Markakis, whether the O's can re-sign Andrew Miller or post a question or comment on the O's top 10 prospects list we discussed here yesterday.