Thank goodness for Logan Webb.
The Giants’ ace is doing ace things again this season, serving as the most reliable arm in a rotation that has been up and down and ranks near the bottom of MLB in earned run average.
Webb, on the other hand, has been mostly elite.
He’s regularly pitching into the late innings, surrendering a low number of runs in each start, and making each of his outings a winnable game for the Giants.
The right-hander has an impressive 1.98 ERA through seven starts and is second in the majors in innings (36 ⅓) and fourth in strikeouts (44). He would be far better than his 3-1 record indicates with a bit more run support as the Giants lost one game in which he threw seven scoreless innings and another in which he gave up one run in six innings.
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Wednesday evening at Oracle Park, Webb was at it again, matching Milwaukee’s Freddy Peralta with scoreless inning after scoreless inning until one of them finally cracked.
It wasn’t Webb.
The Giants erupted in the sixth inning to score four runs and chase Peralta out of the game, which paved the way for a 4-2 victory and improved their season record to 16-9.
“I definitely see that it’s one of our strengths,” Webb said of the Giants’ rotation. “We’re still winning ballgames, and the best is yet to come.”
Entering Wednesday’s game, the rotation ranked 26th of 30 teams in ERA at 4.49. With Webb’s performance, the number dropped to 4.28, good for 22nd in the majors.
There’s plenty of room for improvement, too. Jordan Hicks’ ERA is 6.59 while Justin Verlander’s is 5.47. Landen Roupp’s and Robbie Ray’s are a more reasonable 4.09 and 4.07, respectively.
None of it phases Webb, who pooh-poohed the numbers after Wednesday’s game by saying some of his fellow starters have been victimized by bad luck or had a nice outing ruined with one bad inning.
“We haven’t really had a group of five guys, and we do right now,” Webb said. “It’s super fun to watch the guys every day and see the work that they put in. I think at the end of the season, it’s going to be a different question, right? This group is pretty damned good this year.”
It’ll be necessary for more starters to pick up the slack if the Giants want to stick around with the Dodgers and Padres in the National League West. Verlander is coming off his best start as a Giant, but Hicks was the pitcher of record in Tuesday’s embarrassing 11-3 loss in which nothing went right.
The Giants’ bullpen clearly is out-shining the rotation and is ranked fourth in ERA at 2.69. Wednesday, it took a tremendous performance by Camilo Doval to bail out closer Ryan Walker in the ninth.
The Brewers scored their first two runs off Walker and positioned runners at second and third with one out, but Doval appeared and put a quick end to the threat by retiring two of Milwaukee’s premier hitters. He struck out emerging star Jackson Chourio and induced a game-ending groundout from Christian Yelitch, who blew open Tuesday’s game with a grand slam.
That’s two straight rough outings for Walker, who yielded four runs Sunday to snap his streak of 15 save opportunities converted. Meanwhile, Doval has thrown hitless ball in six straight appearances.
Asked which reliever, Walker or Doval, would pitch in the team’s next save opportunity, manager Bob Melvin said, “We like them both. We’ll figure it out as we go along. It’s too early for me to say anything, having not talked to anybody.”
Webb, who’s not only the staff ace but a resourceful team leader, weighed in on Walker’s woes, too.
“It’s all of our jobs to just be confident and know that tomorrow, if we’re winning by one in the ninth inning, Ryan will come in and do the job.”
As for Webb himself, he spent time in his postgame interview crediting his catcher, Patrick Bailey, and the defense, including right fielder Mike Yastrzemski, who threw out William Contreras trying to advance first to third on a single. But Webb’s own contributions shouldn’t be discounted as he yielded six hits and issued three walks but repeatedly pitched himself out of traffic.
After relying on an effective changeup in his previous start against the Angels, throwing the pitch 26% of the time and getting 11 swings and misses, he threw just 14% changeups Wednesday (just two swings and misses) because he viewed the Brewers as better suited to handle the offering.
As a result, he amped up his dosage of sinkers and sweepers, and it proved a dandy strategy. Eight of his 11 swings and misses came on sinkers and sweepers.
With the game scoreless in the sixth, Willy Adames and Jung Hoo Lee opened the inning with singles off Peralta, who walked Matt Chapman to load the bases. Wilmer Flores’ tie-breaking single off reliever Nick Mears drove in two runners and moved him into the MLB lead for runs batted in with 27.
A night after the Giants played a rotten game on all fronts, they nicely rebounded, led by the ace.
“We’re bound to have a couple of days where things don’t go our way,” Webb said. “To see today where guys came back out and showed the grit, the confidence, everything we did to come back out and do well – and the defense was amazing today – it was the team that we want to be.”