Thursday night’s Mets-Giants game in San Francisco was expected to be a pitcher’s duel, featuring two pitchers — Madison Bumgarner and Jacob deGrom — that entered the game top-five in the majors in ERA (Bumgarner second at 2.11, deGrom fifth at 2.30). Through three innings in the game, it appeared we were indeed getting a pitcher’s duel, as the game was scoreless.

And then the fourth inning came around, to remind us baseball is weird. Madison Bumgarner allowed a grand slam to the Mets’ Justin Ruggiano in the top half of the fourth, and in the bottom half, deGrom allowed five runs himself… with two of those runs coming on this Bumgarner dinger:

That’s Bumgarner’s third home of the season, matching the Mets’ Noah Syndergaard for most homers this year by a pitcher (Syndergaard’s third homer was a moonshot two nights ago). It’s the 14th career homer of his career. Again, we’re talking about a PITCHER.

And this homer wasn’t his first one off a star pitcher:

Pitcher’s Home Run Derby at next year’s All-Star Game, please.

About Matt Clapp

Matt is an editor at The Comeback. He attended Colorado State University, wishes he was Saved by the Bell's Zack Morris, and idolizes Larry David. And loves pizza and dogs because obviously.

He can be followed on Twitter at @Matt2Clapp (also @TheBlogfines for Cubs/MLB tweets and @DaBearNecess for Bears/NFL tweets), and can be reached by email at mclapp@thecomeback.com.