Bumgarner can't find consistency in '23 debut

LOS ANGELES -- It’s easy to play the what-if game in baseball even when it comes to a 10-1 loss, like the one the D-backs experienced at the hands of the Dodgers on Saturday night.

What if that 0-1 changeup that Madison Bumgarner threw to Trayce Thompson landed below the zone and a little outside where it was supposed to, instead of right down the middle?

What if, instead of depositing the pitch into the bleachers in left-center for a grand slam, Thompson swung over the pitch?

Maybe Thompson homers on the next pitch -- he did hit three on the night, after all -- and the game still spins out of control for the D-backs. But these are the small things that players look at when dissecting a game.

Not that Bumgarner was looking to sugarcoat what was a disappointing outing for him. The five-run first inning was aided by him hitting a batter and walking another, and the Thompson grand slam made the fact that he then threw three scoreless innings moot.

“Just one of those [bad] days that you have during the year,” Bumgarner said. “Mine just happened to be the first of the year. Again, it wasn’t like I went out there and threw the ball really, really well, but it was just one pitch away in the first from being a completely different game. After that, it wasn’t bad. I would like to leave here with better results, but I’m not, so I have to move on to the next one.”

Facing Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw for the 12th time in his career and his first since joining the D-backs in 2020, Bumgarner was hoping for a better performance, especially after a '22 season during which no matter what he seemed to try, he couldn’t find success. Bumgarner spent the offseason working to try and avoid the same fate in '23.

The D-backs’ television broadcast showed Bumgarner talking with one of the team’s athletic trainers after the first inning, but manager Torey Lovullo said there was not a health issue.

Bumgarner said he didn’t feel great physically, but that it was typical of how starters sometimes don’t feel their best for all their starts over the course of a season. He had enough to pitch better, he thought, he just didn’t get it done.

“There was nothing major from his standpoint,” Lovullo said. “It was more just us asking questions and trying to find out if everything is OK. There was looseness to the breaking ball, and things just weren’t consistent. He’s always around the zone, but there were some big misses today. Red flags go up when we see that, our eyes tell us a story, but Bum was OK.”

Bumgarner seemed to have quite a bit of success with his changeup this spring, but he’s always prefaced any positives with it by saying that throughout his career, it has always come and gone without him being able to consistently harness it.

The pitch that Thompson hit for the homer was an example of what can happen when he misses his spot with it.

“It wasn't a good pitch, but I don't throw many changeups, so I tend to get a little more leeway with it,” Bumgarner said, referring to batters not expecting it. “But he's obviously feeling good at the plate right now, so you can't afford to make mistakes when somebody's going like that. We threw some good [changeups] after that and before that even, just that one particular one to Trayce was a middle ball.

“It’s not the way you hope to start off a season, but there’s 30 more or so left. I’m looking forward to those.”