Shut em' down, shut em' shut em', shut em' down!!! San Francisco Giants 2014 World Champions!

Shut em Down (Video by AP)

Story by ESPN
Written by Jayson Stark

The bullpen gate opened in the bottom of the fifth inning, and here he came.

It was Madison K. Bumgarner, on his way to the office, to a lonely pitcher's mound in someone else's stadium. To a place where he could do those amazing things that he does.

Where he could save a game. Save a season. Save the San Francisco Giants. Rewrite the October history books. And, when his day's work was done, lug his team to the summit of a mountain that few groups of men have ever scaled.

(photo by Getty) It was Game 7 of the World Series. But really, it had turned into Madison Bumgarner's game. And Madison Bumgarner's October. And, especially, Madison Bumgarner's World Series.

"How it ended today pretty much summed up the Giants in the World Series," said his friend and teammate Jeremy Affeldt. "That guy carried us. He flat-out carried us."

How it ended Wednesday night was how the Giants' championship season had to end. With October's most dominant figure dominating one more time. This time as an emergency reliever, doing what no one had ever done in any World Series ever, in an epic 3-2 win over a Royals team that was able to triumph this October over everyone but him.

The Giants would have been happy to get a couple of innings out of Bumgarner in this game. He gave them five. Five? Seriously? Five innings? Of two-hit shutout relief? On two days' rest? In Game 7 of the World Series?

Right. Five. That isn't just how legends are made. That is how major motion pictures are made.

"I don't think I really have words to describe it," Affeldt said, as incredulous as the rest of us. "To throw seven [innings] and then throw nine and then, two days later, to throw five? You're in the World Series. You're pitching against the best hitters in the world. In Game 7. ... That can't happen. I don't think it will ever happen again. I just don't. I don't even know if we're real right now. I don't even know if I'm talking to you after that happened."

Oh, but it was real, all right. As real as the World Series trophy these players were reverently passing around their locker room. As real as the Mumm Napa Brut they'd spent the past 20 minutes uncorking. As real as the confetti that will be floating in the California sky later this week as the Giants parade through San Francisco for the third time in five years.

So let's try to digest what just happened here. The Giants of Mays, McCovey and Marichal won zero World Series. The often star-studded Giants teams that took the field from 1923 through 2009 won two World Series in 87 seasons, none of them after heading west for San Francisco in 1958.

Read more: http://espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs/2014/story/_/id/11788829/mlb-madison-bumgarner-saves-giants