Jason Vargas slays Giants, Royals beat Madison Bumgarner in 2-0 victory

Nine hundred and four days had passed since Game 7, since Madison Bumgarner had gone legend with a five-inning relief performance on two days of rest, since Alex Gordon had been stranded on third base, since Pablo Sandoval had cradled a Salvador Perez foul pop and fallen onto his back for the final out of the World Series.

Nine hundred and four days, and so much had happened since then. The Royals hoisted a World Series trophy in 2015. A clubhouse grew older and players came and went. A franchise grieved the loss of a young pitcher.

And yet, some things had not changed. San Francisco’s Bumgarner is still baseball’s closest thing to a living, breathing gunslinger, a 6-foot-5, 250-pound specimen hurling left-handed bullets that appear to come from nowhere. And on Wednesday night at Kauffman Stadium, that gunslinger, the Royals’ old World Series nemesis, was outdueled by Jason Vargas, a 34-year-old left-hander who spent the evening baffling the Giants with a bag of 86 mph fastballs and diving changeups.

In a 2-0 victory, Vargas tossed seven scoreless innings, prolonging the masterful work of the starting rotation, offering one of the finest starts in club history.

In three starts, Vargas has allowed just one run, posting a 0.44 ERA while stretching his current scoreless innings streak to 14  2/3. On Wednesday, he finished with nine strikeouts and zero walks, dominance personified, before handing the baton off to Joakim Soria in the eighth inning.

“Fantastic,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.

“Vargs was throwing a great game,” Mike Moustakas said.

“He’s making it look it easy,” Danny Duffy said.

Duffy, of course, could have been talking about everything. After this performance, Vargas became just the fourth pitcher in Royals history to go at least six innings and allow no more than one run in his first three starts. The list includes Kevin Appier, Zack Greinke and Runelvys Hernandez. And while Vargas may lack the power stuff of the first two, perhaps he has more staying power than the latter.

But as Duffy stood near his locker on late Wednesday night, he was really talking about the reconstructed ligament in Vargas’ left elbow. Pitchers are not supposed to be this sharp in their first full season back from Tommy John surgery. They are not supposed to have this much feel. But here is Vargas — a pitcher who went under the knife in the summer of 2015 — now healthy and fit and helping headline an excellent Royals rotation.

“I think he’s better now,” Yost said. “I think that elbow bothered him that last year.”

One night after wasting a strong performance from Jason Hammel, the Royals (7-7) solved Bumgarner with a simple but satisfying formula: Dominant starting pitching. Two innings of perfect relief work. And just enough offense. In some ways, it felt like a throwback to 2014, when the Royals ripped off an unlikely World Series run in the same mold.

That team was anchored by starting pitching. In 2017, the Royals’ rotation has become its own story, beginning the year by posting a collective 2.07 ERA in its first 14 starts.

“I would say everybody is kind of feeding off of each other,” Vargas said. “Looking to go out there and do their job and not be the one that doesn’t get it done.”

In 2014, that wondrous month of October ended at the hands of Bumgarner, who emerged from the bullpen in Game 7 and slammed the door shut in historic fashion. On Wednesday, the offense found a way scratch across a run in the bottom of the fifth.

Paulo Orlando had singled and taken second on a delayed steal. He stood on third base with two outs and Mike Moustakas at the plate.

Moustakas turned on a 2-1 fastball and clubbed a hard chopper at Giants first baseman Brandon Belt, who was handcuffed by the baseball and couldn’t field it cleanly. As the baseball bounced away, Moustakas sprinted down the line and beat Bumgarner to the bag, sliding in headfirst for an RBI single.

“I saw him coming down the line,” Moustakas said. “And I saw Belt flip the ball. So I kind of knew I had to get down. And I ended up getting over there quick enough.”

Bumgarner has pieced together a string of 18 scoreless innings against the Royals, a stretch that began in Game 2 of the World Series in 2014. On this night, he lasted six innings before giving way to the Giants’ bullpen.

This was not an offensive breakout for a Royals team that entered with just 39 runs in 13 games, the lowest total in the majors. It was needed nonetheless. The Royals completed their first homestand with a 5-3 record. They will open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers on Thursday night.

The Royals had entered the evening batting .149 (13 for 87) with runners in scoring position, the worst mark in the major leagues. To reach such depths takes a confluence of poor performance and some rotten luck, and the latter surfaced in the second, when Cheslor Cuthbert came up with runners at second and third and two out. He smashed a baseball 111 mph toward the outfield in left. It ended up in the glove of Giants third baseman Eduardo Nunez.

Inside the dugout, Yost wondered when his team would catch a break. It came in the fifth — and again in the eighth, when Eric Hosmer lashed a double to left field and scored on a bloop single from Perez.

For Hosmer, it was just his second extra-base hit of the season. It offered a two-run cushion for closer Kelvin Herrera, who notched his third save. And when the night was over, it was Herrera who doused catcher Salvador Perez with the Gatorade bucket.

Back inside the clubhouse, Vargas waited to finish his postgame meal and hop a plane to Texas. In the span of two years, he had undergone major elbow surgery, survived the monotony of rehab and, maybe, emerged a better pitcher.

“I just feel that I’m not having to deal with the nagging issues that my elbow was giving me,” Vargas said. “I think even before it was really hurt, [it was] just dealing with those aches that work themselves out.”

Maybe he’s not exactly stronger now, he says. But he can feel the difference. His arm feels fresh. The command is there. The old pain and soreness is gone. A run of dominance has taken its place.

Royals 2, Giants 0

This story was originally published April 19, 2017 at 9:49 PM with the headline "Jason Vargas slays Giants, Royals beat Madison Bumgarner in 2-0 victory."