The 2014 World Series was Madison Bumgarner's world; the San Francisco Giants and Kansas City Royals just played in it. The Giants pitcher not only started two of the seven games in the series — in Game 5, he pitched a complete game and allowed zero runs — he also shut out the Royals in the last five innings of Game 7, on only two days of rest. Bumgarner is indisputably a great postseason pitcher. But how great?
The number-crunchers at The New York Times' Upshot blog devised a system to rank World Series pitchers, the Matty Score — named after Christy Mathewson, the New York Giants great of the early 1900s — which is calculated "by taking a pitcher's career innings pitched in the Series and subtracting three times his earned runs allowed."
Before Game 7, Bumgarner ranked No. 7 on the index; after it, he jumped up to No. 3, behind Mathewson and Sandy Koufax. "If Bumgarner has another impressive World Series, we’ll consider changing the name to the Maddy Score," says David Leonhardt at The Times. To see where other greats rank on the scale, click over to The New York Times.
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