Webb, 24, MLB’s hottest pitcher, won’t start in showdown with LA
Logan Webb began this baseball season as the San Francisco Giants’ No. 5 starter, and he missed the entire month of June with a sprained shoulder. But unbeknownst to most fans, he’s the hottest pitcher in the major leagues. The Giants have won 13 of his past 14 starts, and he’s allowed no more than two runs in any of them. He’s 7-0 during this stretch, with a 1.46 ERA. He’s yielded 56 hits in 80 innings while striking out 88.
The Giants won the three games he’s pitched against the Los Angeles Dodgers. But he won’t be available for the three-game showdown that begins Friday night at Oracle Park.
The opener will air on MLB Network at 8:45 p.m. Central time.
Webb pitched Thursday against Milwaukee, allowing one run in 7 innings, departing with the game tied at 1. The Giants scored 4 in the 8th to win 5-1 and move back into a tie with their historic rivals atop the National League West.
The Giants had first place to themselves for five months, but they lost four games in a row this week (against division leaders Atlanta and Milwaukee) and relinquished their lead.
“We’ve been on a little skid here,” Webb said after Thursday’s game. “I felt a little extra adrenaline in the first couple of innings. It felt like a playoff game.
“It was so much fun watching those guys at the end of the game get the win. We were all screaming in the clubhouse. We needed that.”
Webb did his part, giving up just four hits and tying his career high with 10 strikeouts. At 24 he has suddenly blossomed in his third year in The Show.
The key to his breakthrough is the abandonment of a four-seam fastball, which topped out at 96 mph — barely above average for righthanders in today’s velo-obsessed baseball world. The spin rate wasn’t what Webb wanted, and too often the batters were pounding a pitch he was using 42% of the time.
Webb still throws an occasional four-seamer high in the zone, but his dominant weapon is a 94 mph sinker that tails sharply into a righthanded batter. According to Fangraphs this sinker averages 31 inches in vertical drop with 10 inches of late horizontal movement.
He balances that pitch with a slider that averages 92 and breaks the opposite direction. The batting average against his slider is .131.
With his No. 3 pitch, an 87 mph changeup that looks much like the sinker, only slower, Webb is a groundball machine. He has a groundball rate of 61.2% that’s exceeded only Houston lefty Framber Valdez.
Though it may seem that Webb has come out of nowhere, the Giants regarded the 6-2, 220-pound pitcher as one of their top prospects. They drafted him in the fourth round in 2014 when he was at Rocklin High School in California.
Unfortunately he won’t be available against the Dodgers in the critical upcoming series. San Francisco is severely shorthanded with two starting pitchers ailing: Alex Wood suffering from Covid-19 and Johnny Cueto out with a cold. All-Star Kevin Gausman, who started Wednesday against Milwaukee, isn’t due to pitch again until Monday in Colorado.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler will have the matchup edge Friday night, with Anthony DeSclafani (11-6, 3.38 ERA) against David Price, who has a 3.88 ERA and has not pitched beyond the fourth inning in any of his past four starts.
But the advantage shifts to the visitors for the remaining two games. Julio Urias (15-3, 3.17) will start for them Saturday night, and Cy Young Award contender Walker Buehler (13-2, 2.05) goes Sunday in a 6:05 game carried by ESPN.
Kapler on Thursday evening had not determined who will start for his team in the final two games of the season series between the Western leaders. He said, “We will use our bullpen.”
