Jay Bruce knew the Mets were in for a rough night against Madison Bumgarner, and the left-hander lived up to his reputation.
“That was vintage Madison Bumgarner,” Bruce said after the Mets were shut out by the Giants, 3-0, in the NL wild-card game on Wednesday at Citi Field. “It was the exact same guy I’ve seen since 2010 or whenever he came up.”
And that was especially true in the fifth, when Bumgarner let up a looping double to T.J. Rivera to open the inning, bringing up Bruce in one of the Mets’ few scoring chances of the night.
Bumgarner responded by striking out Bruce and the Mets never got a runner to third — let alone home.
Afterward, Bruce knew he was beaten in the crucial at-bat.
“I’m trying my best to get him over to third with one out,” Bruce said. “I pull [the ball] more than I hit it the other way anyway, so I’m hoping to do that there.”
But after popping out to right on the first pitch in his first at-bat, Bruce tried to be patient.
“I didn’t want to make an out on the first pitch again,” Bruce said. “He dropped a curveball in for a strike and then got me down and in. It was just a tough at-bat.”
Rene Rivera followed by grounding into a fielder’s choice, James Loney was walked intentionally and Noah Syndergaard struck out.
“He’s aggressive in the zone,” Bruce said. “He comes after you. He’s very confident in his stuff and with his demeanor on the mound. He knows what he’s doing out there.”
Despite all that — and his brutal start to his tenure with the Mets — Bruce looked back on the year in a positive light.
“To come over here in this atmosphere, I’m very fortunate,” Bruce said. “I had so much fun playing baseball down the stretch. We had an opportunity to go to the next round and we battled so hard to get here.”
And he thought the Mets were still set up with Jeurys Familia on the mound in the ninth.
“I’ll take my chances with him out there,” Bruce said. “We just couldn’t get anything going. In a perfect world, we’d come out on the winning side. It hurts, for sure.”
Now he’ll have to wait until 2017 to prove that he belongs in New York following his trade from the Reds.
“My time here didn’t start like I wanted it to,” Bruce said. “You never know when you’re gonna go back to the playoffs. This was my fourth time and I don’t take it for granted.”
