Kritik und Lob » he could explain his ability to

Move on, but leave no one behind.Injured Western Bulldogs captain Bob Murphy has spoken of the theme at the AFL club this week as they cope with last Saturday nights trauma, as well as prepare for the massive game against Geelong.Their upset 15-point loss to St Kilda was nothing compared to the devastating atmosphere in their changerooms after the match.Mitch Wallis was still in the rooms, yelling in agony from the broken leg he suffered during the last quarter and clearly audible to his teammates.Fellow Bulldog Jack Redpath had also suffered a serious knee injury during the match.Like Wallis, Redpath has needed surgery and his season is over.The theme of the week really has been `we move on, but no one gets left behind, Murphy told AFL360.Its a really important distinction to make.This footy team has to play Geelong on Friday night in a massive game and theres still plenty of life in this season for our footy club.The Bulldogs remain top-four contenders, despite a horrible run of injuries that included Murphys knee reconstruction in the first month of the season.Every year, every footy team, every player, you kind of go in with the armour on, that the footy season is a roller-coaster, he said.But this year has been extreme, with the injuries - the amount and then the severity of them, the circumstances.Weve been a resilient team and a resilient club.It just tests that a little bit more.Murphy was in the rooms after Saturday nights game and said he had never encountered anything like it in his 17-year AFL career.Coach Luke Beveridge has admitted to feeling plenty of emotion in the wake of what happened.Its off the radar of what youre prepared for as a footballer, Murphy said.It really was a double blow thats hit us, no doubt about it.It just heaps more emotion on the bonfire.Murphy said the players met for lunch the following day and Redpath lifted spirits by also visiting.It was a day to have a couple of beers, put an arm around each other and let each other know were all okay, he said.The Bulldogs play in Geelong, with the Cats determined to honour Jimmy Bartels 300th game and Corey Enrights club-record 326th match.Murphy is adamant they will be ready.You either believe or you dont. Weve said for a long time we have a lot of depth at our footy club, he said.This team has shown that one falls down, one steps straight in and we get good results.Its a challenge, of course it is, but we actually believe were good enough to beat anyone. Braves Jerseys 2020 . Ryan Garbutt had a goal and two assists as Dallas snapped a six-game losing streak with a 5-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night. Atlanta Braves Shirts . The Dutchmans tenure got off to a poor start when referee Guido Winkmann awarded a penalty within two minutes for Niklas Starks clumsy challenge on Alexandru Maxim. https://www.cheapbraves.com/ . After Gasquet beat fifth-seeded Ivan Dodig of Croatia 7-5, 6-3, Tsonga followed up with a 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-2 win against sixth-seeded Edouard Roger-Vasselin in an all-French match. Ronald Acuna Jr. Braves Jersey . Brazilian national coach Luiz Felipe Scolari has confirmed that the veteran goalkeeper is set to join Toronto on loan, saying it will help him be ready for the World Cup. Braves Jerseys China . "Four now," Carl Gunnarsson told the Leaf Report proudly following a 5-2 victory over New York on Tuesday night, the clubs fifth straight at home. NEW YORK -- So is this what it was like to watch Christy Mathewson work his magic in the chill of October? Or Carl Hubbell? Or Grover Cleveland Alexander?Is this what it looks like when a man is turning himself into a legend before our eyes, one dominating shutout inning at a time, October after October after October?All we have is the record books to tell us what the old-time legends looked like. But luckily, we have our very own eyeballs to tell us what Madison Bumgarner looks like when October arrives, and seasons and legacies are on the line. And once again Wednesday night, he headed for the mound in a winner-take-all postseason baseball game -- and rewrote baseball history for about the 17th time.I dont think we think about the history of it all, said his shortstop, Brandon Crawford, on another epic MadBum October evening. Weve almost come to expect it.Hey, at this point, hasnt everyone? The San Francisco Giants are alive and breathing today, heading for Chicago to take on the Cubs, because of course they are -- and because it all looked verrrry familiar.They live on thanks to another four-hit Madison Bumgarner shutout special, a storybook swing of the bat by an instant folk hero named Conor Gillaspie and a 3-0 win over the New York Mets in a National League wild-card game that wont soon be forgotten.And neither, obviously, will the winning pitcher. Because hes about as special as it gets.Its supposed to be harder to impose your will on these October baseball games than Madison Bumgarner makes it look. But when the champagne bottles had all been emptied late Wednesday evening, here was just the latest compendium of what this man has been able to accomplish when the only thing riding on these games is pretty much everything:? He has now spent 23 innings on the mound in winner-take-all baseball games. And he has hung a zero on the scoreboard in all 23 of them. Yep, that would be a record.? He has thrown complete-game shutouts in two of those games -- the 2014 wild-card game and this one. Ready for the complete list of all pitchers in history who have thrown multiple shutouts in winner-take-all postseason games? Here it comes: There is Madison Bumgarner. ... And, well, thats it.? Bumgarner has now made 13 postseason starts in his career. He forgot to allow a run in six of them. You should know that only one other pitcher in history has made six scoreless postseason starts over the course of his career. And that was Tom Glavine. Who made nearly three times as many starts (35) as Bumgarner has made.Well sprinkle in more of these astonishing tidbits as we go along. But first, take a moment to let all that sink in, because nobody should take any of this for granted -- even though his teammates, at this point, are working hard to make him think they are.He just went out there and did what everybody expected, his first baseman, Brandon Belt, deadpanned afterward. Its almost boring. He really needs to do something a little different next time. Id like to see him hit a home run or something. How about hitting a home run in a playoff game. Heck, anybody can do it in a regular-season game.Well, as a matter of fact, Bumgarner almost did that Wednesday, too. In the third inning of this game, he stepped in there to face fire-spitting Mets ace Noah Syndergaard -- a man who had just finished striking out the previous four hitters hed faced -- and crushed the second-hardest-hit ball Syndergaard allowed all night. He just made the mistake of hitting it to deep left-center field, where home runs at Citi Field go to die.He got back to the dugout after that one, and he was mad, said his buddy, Jake Peavy. He said, Man, I hit that good.But when we think back on MadBums mano a mano with Syndergaard, it wont be either ones hitting that we remember. It will be their monumental reenactment of the last postseason elimination game in which both starting pitchers spun at least seven shutout innings: Jack Morris versus John Smoltz, in the iconic seventh game of the 1991 World Series.Not that either Bumgarner or Syndergaard has any recollection of that game -- since Bumgarner was 2 years old at the time and Syndergaard had yet to experience his rookie year on Planet Earth. But thats what this game had the feel of for those of us who did remember it, as the donuts kept mounting on the board, one after another.You know, we talk a lot in [Giants] history about the famous game with Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn, said Giants general manager Bobby Evans, conjuring up the memory of a fabled 16-inning 1-0 game between those two Hall of Famers in 1963.dddddddddddd It ended on a Willie Mays walk-off home run in the bottom of the 16th -- off Spahn, of course.I used to sit in the room when I first got here and hear the stories of that game, Evans went on. And thats what this one felt like to me -- what [longtime Giants executives] Dick Tidrow and Jack Hiatt used to describe about that Juan Marichal and Warren Spahn game.Sure, that works, too. Except for the fact that there was no chance of these two starters going 16, obviously. Unless, that is, that Bumgarner planned on doing that. And you couldnt put it past him at this point. But regardless, his team needed every ounce of brilliance he had in him on this night -- because Syndergaard was his usual electric self, firing seven overpowering innings of two-hit, 10-strikeout baseball.Syndergaard was unbelievable, said Buster Posey. But there was such a calmness in our dugout. And I think its safe to say Bum deserves a lot of credit for that.Yeah, that seems safe, all right. Imagine what its like for these men to play behind this guy after all the miracles theyve seen him perform, after all the history theyve seen him make, after all the rings he has put on their fingers. To take the field on a game of this magnitude, knowing Bumgarner is on the mound, is just a feeling of total confidence, Belt said. It doesnt get any better than that. Its just fun.But for these even-year Giants, the best part of that fun is in complementing the brilliance of their ace with an almost undefinable knack for finding ways to win October classics like this one. So say hello to Conor Gillaspie, a man who was playing in this game only because (A) the Giants dealt away their third baseman, Matt Duffy, at the trading deadline, (B) the guy who replaced him, Eduardo Nunez, wasnt healthy enough to make the postseason roster and (C) Travis Ishikawa and Willie Mays werent in uniform anymore.So of course Gillaspie hammered a three-run, ninth-inning home run off a man who had allowed exactly one home run all year (Mets closer Jeurys Familia). And of course, he roared around the bases, pumping both fists, as the oxygen seemed to drain out of Citi Field. And of course, when that joyous trot was over, Madison Bumgarner looked at him and said: Conor, I appreciate the hell out of that.Asked afterward about that classically polite MadBum greeting, and if it was true hed really told the hero du jour he appreciated that mighty blast, Bumgarner said, in that low-key way of his: Im sure everybody does.OK, try to argue with that, huh? But its also true that when the starting pitcher never gives up a run, he makes all those unlikely heroes possible. And thats the specialty of Madison Bumgarners house.He has now pitched in eight postseason road games. The Giants have won all eight of them. He has worked 53? innings in those eight games. The opposition has scored a total of three earned runs. And he has faced 24 hitters with runners in scoring position in those postseason road games. The next hit he allows will be his first. Yeah, really.But dont ask him to reveal the secrets of how he does these impossible things he does. When he sat on the podium Wednesday night, next to his new best friend, Gillaspie, and was asked if he could explain his ability to conquer October, Madison Bumgarner just shrugged and said: I wish I had an answer for you. I dont.Fortunately, though, Conor Gillaspie had one.Hes tough, Gillaspie said. Thats why. Hes a competitive, competitive guy at everything he does. And it shows -- not just in baseball but anything in life.Well, well probably never know what its like to face Madison Bumgarner on a golf course, or in fantasy football, or even in a fishing tournament. So well just have to base our conclusions on that ongoing mini-series, MadBum Versus October. But the one thing weve noticed about that series is that every episode seems to turn out the same as the one before, and the one before that.Its the same old postseason Bum, said Belt. In the postseason, theres just nobody better. ' ' '