Fun facts about Madison Bumgarner and his Opening Day home runs

Madison Bumgarner hit two home runs on Opening Day, and they were two of the loudest, most majestic home runs we’ll see all year. One of them was a laser that didn’t get too far off the ground, and one of them was an arcing moonshot that will land by the time you finish this article.

Although I didn’t get a chance to finish the game because I had errands to run, these two home runs made Sunday’s game one of the greatest I’ve ever seen.

mmmpprrrmmmph

Goodness. Now, we had some fun facts in the recap yesterday, but we deserve more fun facts. A whole post of them. For example ...

Those two homers left the bat at a higher exit velocity than any home run ever hit off Madison Bumgarner

Caveat: We have just three years of exit velocity, so it’s possible that in 2010 or 2011, Bumgarner allowed a Bumgarner-like home run. But the highest exit velocity on record against him was this dumb homer from Enrique Hernandez in 2015, which left the bat at 110 mph.

Bumgarner hit two on Sunday that left the bat at a higher velocity

Oh, I guess that’s its own fun fact, too. Pretend there’s a header over that.

Madison Bumgarner is just the second San Francisco Giants pitcher to hit two home runs in a game

The only other one was Jim Gott, who did it in the 100-loss 1985 season. He would hit one more homer that season, and then one more over the next eight seasons.

Both of the home runs left the bat quicker than any Giants home run in 2016

This is very close to being a very un-fun fact, because it indirectly points out that the Giants hit four home runs as a team last year, but I’ll allow it because there were a lot of players who didn’t hit home runs like that last year. From Dave Cameron’s appreciation piece over at FanGraphs:

Being able to hit a ball 110-plus mph in the air isn’t just something you fluke your way into. For reference, Madison Bumgarner hit as many balls in the air at 110-plus yesterday as Adam Jones did last year. Among the players who hit fewer air balls at 110-plus in 2016 than Bumgarner did yesterday: Robinson Cano, Andrew McCutchen, Jay Bruce, Daniel Murphy, and Carlos Beltran.

Madison Bumgarner is the fourth San Francisco Giant to hit two homers on Opening Day

The other three were Barry Bonds, Matt Williams, and Willie Mays.

That is a very, very, very good Giants list.

Since coming into the league in 2009, Madison Bumgarner has more home runs than every Dodgers and Phillies pitcher combined

Phillies pitchers have hit five home runs since 2009. Dodgers pitchers have hit eight. Bumgarner has 16.

Of course of those 13 Dodgers/Phillies homers, three of them came against the Giants, but you knew that. Not all facts can be so fun.

Madison Bumgarner is one career home run behind Ryan Theriot

But he has more than Larry Bowa, Rey Sanchez, and Jamey Carroll, if you’re looking for more names. He has more than Sonny Jackson and Roger Metzger combined, if you’re looking for Giants connections.

Madison Bumgarner has a 5.000 OPS this season

This is not sustainable, but if his OPS drops three thousand points, he’ll still destroy the all-time record. Think about it.

This was just the 69th time that a pitcher has hit two home runs in one game

(Technically, there might have been a couple in the era before play-by-play data was complete (pre-1913), but I’m ignoring this for the jokes. Even with those pitchers, my stars, this is a rare occurrence.)

Teams are 62-7 when their starting pitcher hits two home runs or more

Wait ...

This was the first time a team has lost a game with a two-homer game from their pitcher since 1969

Stop, go back to the fun fa

Even Nate Silver is clowning on the Giants right now

Hey, wait, that’s not

I am still very, very bitter about the Giants losing Opening Day

This is a fact. It is not fun.

But you are free to scroll up and watch those videos again to help cleanse the palate. Madison Bumgarner had one of the most memorable games in history. It’s a shame that I don’t want to remember the whole thing.