NEW YORK - They play baseball for six months and 162 games because it is most like life. It needs time to breathe, a tedious existence with good days, bad days and rainy days. It is not designed for nights like Wednesday, inside Citi Field, when two of the game's elite arms clashed in a one-game playoff to begin the National League postseason.
If a draft were held of all pitchers in baseball for the purposes of one game, they could have easily started it with Madison Bumgarner and Noah Syndergaard. For two hours, they traded brilliance. But, when one of the greatest postseason games in recent memory ended as a 3-0 Giants win over the Mets, Bumgarner stood alone on the mound while thousands of New Yorkers cursed his name.