Webb steps it up with stellar performance
After a dominant spring that earned him a spot in the Giants rotation, righthander Logan Webb entered Sunday as the weakest link on a starting staff that’s been the catalyst behind the club’s impressive start to the season.
With seven scoreless innings, a career-high eight strikeouts and a two-run,
second-inning triple that marked the first base hit by a Giants pitcher this season, Webb turned his rough start to the season around with the best game of his career and lifted San Francisco to a 4-3 series-clinching win over the Miami Marlins.
The Marlins scored a pair of runs in the eighth and one in the ninth on a Lewis Brinson RBI single, but right-hander Tyler Rogers induced a routine groundout to second base from Marlins rookie Jazz Chisholm to record his second save this season.
The Giants improved to 14-8 on the season and 8-2 in 10 home games at Oracle Park, but a team that’s been short-handed due to various injuries lost third baseman Wilmer Flores in the third inning because he was “feeling under the weather,” before right fielder Mike Yastrzemski left the game in the seventh inning with left oblique tightness.
Webb began Sunday’s game with a 5.87 ERA in four games this season, but gave up just three hits and three walks against a Marlins lineup that didn’t score until Webb left the mound.
With three groundball double plays, Webb helped his cause on the mound, but his performance at the plate was just as critical to the Giants’ win.
In the bottom of the second, Webb teed off on a 3-0 fastball from Miami reliever Paul Campbell and drilled a 109.0-mile per hour triple into the right center field gap to score two.
“Now I know why hitters like hitting so much,” Webb said. “When you hit it and it feels good, it feels like nothing. It was a lot of fun doing that. I was definitely a little tired after I got to third.”
Webb’s triple was the first by a Giants pitcher since Tim Lincecum hit one at Oracle Park on June 21, 2013 against Ricky Nolasco of the Marlins and the first base hit by a San Francisco pitcher since Webb singled on September 28, 2019 against the Dodgers.
“There were some jokes on the bench that when we took him out of the game, we took the best bat out of the lineup,” manager Gabe Kapler said.
Webb’s seven innings and eight strikeouts tied career highs set in a 6-2 win over the Diamondbacks on Aug. 21, 2020 and marked the first-ever start of his career in which he held an opponent scoreless.
The Giants’ pitching staff was four outs away from helping catcher Curt Casali join former Pittsburgh Pirates catcher Ed Phelps as the only other catcher in major league history to start behind the plate in six consecutive shutout wins. With two outs in the eighth inning, reliever Matt Wisler gave up a single to Marlins shortstop Miguel Rojas before first baseman Jesús Aguilar crushed his third home run of the series into the left field bleachers.
“I’m trying to help the pitcher suppress runs,” Casali said. “I’ve never had a streak of games like that in my life. I felt pretty good at the time, I’m kind of glad the anxiety is gone, but I’m definitely proud of all the pitchers’ work that they did to help me accomplish that and who knows, maybe we can start a new one now.”
Prior to Webb’s two-run triple, the Giants scored their first run a safety squeeze from shortstop Mauricio Dubón that scored Flores. They added onto the lead with a Brandon Belt sacrifice fly in the fifth inning, but were unable to break the game open.
Jason Vosler, who made his major league debut on Saturday night, entered Sunday’s game as a defensive replacement for Flores and picked up his first career hit and first stolen base in the fifth inning.