D-backs skip Madison Bumgarner for 1 start in ‘performance-based decision’

Arizona Diamondbacks left-handed pitcher Madison Bumgarner will be skipped for one scheduled outing in a “performance-based decision,” manager Torey Lovullo told Bally Sports’ Jody Jackson on Wednesday.

Lovullo said Bumgarner will spend the time getting some “quality work” done with pitching coach Brent Strom and that it was a decision made for the betterment of the team as opposed to one individual.

Arizona right-handers Merrill Kelly and Zach Davies will both move up a day in the rotation, with Kelly getting the nod on Saturday versus the Chicago White Sox and Davies receiving the ball the day after.

Bumgarner’s ERA on the season has climbed from a 3.45 in mid-June to 4.53 in late August and he is going through arguably the worst month-plus of his career statistically.

Over Bumgarner’s last five outings across 28.2 innings, he has given up 24 earned runs. It is only the second five-game stretch of Bumgarner’s career in which his earned run total got that high, a mark of 25 runs allowed from the pandemic-affected 2020 season, per Baseball Reference. In addition, the 41 hits across his previous five starts are only topped by 42 all the way back in 2010 during Bumgarner’s first full MLB season, according to Baseball-Reference.

Bumgarner got off to a terrific start to 2022, joining the likes of Zac Gallen in a dominating beginning to the year for D-backs starting pitchers. The lefty’s ERA through seven starts was 1.78, he had not given up more than two earned runs in any of those appearances and it was only a combined six earned runs. After doing that, though, Bumgarner has sacrificed two or fewer runs in just six of his next 18 outings.

The 33-year-old is in the third season of a five-year, $85 million contract that will see him make $23 million in 2023 and $14 million for the final year of the deal.

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