The Giants got to a 50-50 record on Sunday with another extra-innings win against the Mets. Even having done that, and even improbably having played themselves back into the National League Wild Card picture, there is still a chance that they trade Madison Bumgarner -- one of San Francisco's greatest players, and one of the sport's greatest postseason pitchers. Considering everything that Bumgarner has done with the Giants and how long he seems to have been around, he doesn’t turn 30 until Aug. 1, the day after the Trade Deadline. I hope he’s still with San Francisco on his birthday.

You know why this might be the time to move Bumgarner, even if he was a part of the three World Series championships the Giants have won in this decade. There are still four teams ahead of San Francisco in the NL Wild Card standings, and the club entered Monday tied with the D-backs at .500. While the Giants are playing well, many of their core players are in their 30s, and it’s likely they will need to rebuild. If they want to be sellers in a week and a half, Bumgarner and closer Will Smith are the most attractive trade pieces they have, even if Bumgarner is in possession of (limited) no-trade rights as impressive as the nine innings he threw against the Mets on Thursday night.

By the way, Bumgarner wanted to go back out for the 10th inning of a game the Giants eventually won in 16. Mananger Bruce Bochy, who is retiring at the end of the season, wasn’t having any of it. So Bumgarner ended his night having allowed one run on five hits with six strikeouts and one walk. He dueled Noah Syndergaard, against whom he pitched in a memorable NL Wild Card game at Citi Field three years ago. The Giants won that one, 3-0, on Conor Gillaspie’s home run in the top of the ninth. Then Bumgarner went out for the bottom of the frame and completed his shutout.

When Bumgarner left Thursday's game, he got a rousing ovation from the fans at Oracle Park. When he was asked about it later that night, he said, "It means a lot. I've been through a lot here, and I've been here for a long time. That's special, it is."

Bumgarner has been a special player in San Francisco. I hope he stays there, even in a world when it seems like just about everybody except Mike Trout moves. Even though the Giants brought Willie Mays over from New York City, San Francisco fans always seemed to love Willie McCovey more because he was theirs, because he came up as a 21-year old kid in 1959 and hit .354 in his first 52 games in the big leagues. Bumgarner was 21 when he helped pitch the Giants to the World Series championship in 2010.

Bumgarner started Game 4 of that 2010 series against the Rangers, and he pitched eight scoreless innings en route to the Giants' victory. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. When he got back to the World Series two years later in Game 2 against the Tigers, he pitched seven blank frames and yielded just two hits. Against the Royals two years later, he tossed seven innings of one-run ball in Game 1 and a shutout in Game 5, only to come out of the bullpen in Game 7 and pitch five more scoreless innings to earn a save that is still thought of as the greatest World Series save of them all -- and it was in a night when he seemed willing to pitch all night.

Bumgarner is not the only face of the Giants as they have made history for the franchise. Bochy has been there for all of it. So has Buster Posey, who first became a star in 2010. But no one has been more a symbol of the team’s October excellence than Bumgarner.

There are a lot of contending teams in both leagues who look at the big games Bumgarner has pitched and see him doing the same thing for them this October. But I believe Bumgarner is supposed to be a Giant for life the way the NBA's Stephen Curry, whose Golden State team is on its way to San Francisco now, is supposed to be a Warrior for life. Even in the current culture of sports, where there is such great excitement over player movement, I think there are players who are supposed to stay. And Bumgarner is one of them.

Do you know when another starter will come along to win games in three World Series for the same team? It doesn't happen often. The last guy to do it before Bumgarner was Andy Pettitte, who left the Yankees after the 2003 season and came back in '07. But as important a big-game October pitcher as Pettitte was, even he didn’t matter to the Yanks the way Bumgarner has mattered to Bochy’s Giants.

You know why the Giants could move him at the Trade Deadline. You know what a haul he could bring back as a starting pitcher in what is always a seller’s market at this time of year. San Francisco could get a bunch of young guys for him. Except Bumgarner isn’t old, and he sure hasn’t pitched old lately. If he pitches in October, I hope he’s still pitching for the Giants.