NL Wild Card Game – What’s The Madison Bumgarner Chant?

Madison Bumgarner has impressive skills. Photo by Thearon W. Henderson

The San Francisco Giants will send that man, that impressively skilled-Bud-Light-swilling-man named Madison Bumgarner to the mound at PNC Park.   Pittsburgh Pirates fans will serenade the southpaw with a rousing chant, but just what will that chant be Pittsburgh?

Madison Bumgarner is a homegrown talent who was developed by the Giants organization and has been a stud performer in the postseason.  This isn’t your normal Major League pitcher.  He reminds us of the Pirates Gerrit Cole–and damn

did you see how well he pitched in that game with the NL Central Division on the line?

What a  complete waste by the Pirates.

But anyway, Bumgarner is mentally strong.  It won’t be easy for a chant to get him out of his game.    But that won’t stop Pittsburgh.  Bumgarners’ has two nicknames listed on Wiki.  They are MadBum, and Big Country.

Why Big Country you ask?  Maybe because he lives on a ton of acres in North Carolina and gave his wife a five-day old bull calf as a wedding present in 2010.   Seriously.  True story.

Madison Bumgarner will be serenaded at PNC Park.

It’s going to take some serious work by the Pirates fans to get into the head of MadBum given his success the past few years.  Giants skipper Bruce Bochy said it all when he announced that Bumgarner would start the NL Wild-Card that “I don’t think there was any question who you pitch that game.”

Bumgarner had eighteen wins this season with a sparkling 2.98 ERA.  In six starts in the postseason, he was 3-2 with a 3.79ERA which came during the 2010 and 2012 World Series titles.  Mad Bum pitched the clinching game of the NLDS in 2010 against the Atlanta Braves.  He followed that up with eight shutout innings against the Texas Rangers in a massive Game Five win in the WS.  The guy has been there.  The guy has done that.

Against the Pirates, he hasn’t been quite as dominant over his career.  Here are the breakdown numbers from ESPN:

Pirates fans, the serenade will need to be really loud at PNC Park.  This guy is cool, calm, collected and a competitive pitcher that also takes pride in his work with a bat in his hand.  He has developed into a top of the rotation arm for the Giants who picked him tenth overall in the 2007 draft.  After dominating in the minors, even fighting and pissing off the organization from what we read, he was right there when they needed him in 2010.  And 2012.  And now 2014.  What is this every two years thing?

But Pirates fans–the serenade worked in 2013.  It can work in 2014, there is no reason to believe it won’t work again as long as everyone acts in unison.  Rest those pipes Buccos fans, there is work to do Wednesday night when Madison Bumgarner walks to the PNC Park pitchers mound.  God that is going to be electric.

The only question is what should it be?

Madison Bumgarner is going to hear a lot of yinzers sing to him during the NL Wild Card Game.