Both San Francisco Giants pitchers Madison Bumgarner and Mark Melancon are getting closer to joining the team. The news couldn’t come soon enough.
According to Bob Hille of The Sporting News, “The Giants saw progress on two fronts Thursday as ace Madison Bumgarner and closer Mark Melancon hit significant progress points in their return from injuries that have sidelined them all season.”
Both players would be instrumental in a potential playoff run by the team. The San Francisco Giants are 22-23 at the moment.
Bumgarner (broken pinky) played long toss and Melancon (pronator strain) threw 20 pitches to live hitters before the Giants’ game Thursday at AT&T Park.
Bumgarner, he was selected with the tenth overall pick in the 2007 MLB Draft by the San Francisco Giants. In 2008, his first year playing professionally, he won the South Atlantic League pitching triple crown. He and Buster Posey both made their Major League debuts in 2009, and have since established a reputation as one of the best batteries in recent MLB history, largely due to their prolific success early in their careers. Bumgarner’s eight scoreless innings in Game 4 of the 2010 World Series made him the youngest left-handed pitcher to start a World Series game, and it helped win the franchise’s first World Series in San Francisco and first since 1954.
Following one of the most dominant postseason and World Series pitching performances in modern MLB history, he was named the Most Valuable Player of the 2014 World Series, the 2014 Babe Ruth Award winner, the 2014 Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year, and the 2014 Associated Press Male Athlete of the Year.
The loss of Melancon comes on the heels of him signing a four-year, $62 million deal last offseason. His injury woes were felt last season when he missed three separate chunks of the 2017 season because of the pronator injury that limited him to 11 saves last year and also has sidelined him thus far this season, Hille wrote.
Melancon was drafted by the New York Yankees in the ninth round of the 2006 Major League Baseball draft. Melancon pitched for the Staten Island Yankees of the Class A-Short Season New York–Penn League in 2006. He missed the entire 2007 season after having Tommy John surgery in October 2006.
In 2008, he pitched for three of the Yankees minor league affiliates: The Single-A Tampa Yankees, Double-A Trenton Thunder and Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees, going 8–1 with a 2.27 ERA in 41 relief appearances, holding batters to a .202 batting average. Following the season, Baseball America rated him the organization’s ninth-best prospect.