Triple Play Podcast: Royals in ALCS, Madison Bumgarner, JJ Hardy

This week featured just a little bit of excitement around the Royals, in case you missed it. So of course we talked about the Royals going up 2-0 in the ALCS, but first, Reese, Matt, and I talked about the utter dominance of Madison Bumgarner in the postseason. He’s got a 0.76 ERA in 3 starts, and he’s clearly been the best pitcher of the playoffs, in either league, with no real competition. His start against the Cardinals led the Giants to an early 1-0 lead in the NLCS.

The Orioles made news prior to the ALCS getting underway, when they signed shortstop J.J. Hardy to a $40 million contract extension. All three of us are skeptical of the deal working out for the Orioles, but the team’s circumstances may have made them believe they needed to pay Hardy before he hit the open market this winter.

From there, we spent some time on the red-hot Lorenzo Cain, who reached base 8 times in the first 2 games of the series, along with making several incredible plays in the outfield. Cain’s not powering the offense by himself, though, and he’s gotten a lot of help from Mike Moustakas, who apparently becomes a machine in non-regular season games. Speaking of machines, the Royals bullpen has been outstanding in the last few games, led by Wade Davis, who has struck out 5 batters in 3 innings of work during the series.