Webb’s sinker-slider combo coming along

DENVER » After his last start, Logan Webb was hesitantly optimistic but slightly coy.

“I think those first couple outings, you guys know what pitch I’m talking about, I wasn’t very confident in,” Webb said. “I think we’re getting closer to getting that pitch where it was last year.”

That pitch is Webb’s slider.

Pairing it with his sinker, Webb developed the devastating one-two punch that he rode to the second-lowest ERA in the majors during his final 20 starts of last season. Through his first six starts this season, though, Webb relied on a different pitch mix, and he hasn’t been the same pitcher.

Webb has been more reliant on his changeup to start this season than at any point since he returned from a shoulder strain last July and began his ascension to the club’s young ace. He threw the pitch 36% of the time in April, an even higher rate than in his similarly rocky start to last season, while turning to his sinker only 34% of the time and his slider on 28% of his pitches, his lowest usage of both pitches since last May.

“It’s the same thing I did last year,” Webb said. “I started off and my slider wasn’t great, so I went heavy changeup. Just throwing it a little too much. It was the same thing this year.”

But then, last Friday in St. Louis, that sinker-slider mix reappeared.

While limiting the Cardinals to a run over six innings — his strongest performance since tossing eight innings in his second start of the year — Webb threw more sinkers, more sliders and fewer changeups than he had in any start this season.

“It wasn’t a good pitch, so I wasn’t throwing it as much,” Webb said of the slider. But, in his bullpen session before the St. Louis start, Webb said, he “thought I turned a corner.”

Sinkers: 44%. Sliders: 34%. Changeup: 20%. The breakdown bore a striking resemblance to the final months of last season, when, would you look at that, Webb threw 44% sinkers, just under 30% sliders, and right around 20% changeups.

It was when he got the slider working last season, “that’s when he started to become Logan Webb,” catcher and close confidant Curt Casali said.

“When that pitch is on, that really rounds out the arsenal,” echoed pitching coach Andrew Bailey. “And when he feels confident throwing it in terms of execution, it’s another level.”