What Makes San Francisco Giants Ace So Special?

It's only April, but San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb is already in midseason form.

Webb dominated the New York Mets during Tuesday night's 5-1 win at Oracle Park, outdueling Luis Severino with eight shutout innings. He scattered six hits and one walk while striking out four, throwing 75 of his 106 pitches for strikes.

As usual, Webb excelled by keeping the ball on the ground, inducing a whopping 15 groundouts. He hasn't given up a run in his last 19 innings and is now 3-1 with a 2.33 ERA and a 2.77 FIP across an MLB-high 38 2/3 innings.

On Wednesday morning, MLB Network dove into what makes Webb so special.

Logan Webb was lights out again, running his consecutive scoreless innings streak to 19!@markdero7 dives into Webb's dominant 8-inning start last night and his ability to generate ground ball after ground ball.@SFGiants | #MLBCentral pic.twitter.com/jCXT2Mb3eI
— MLB Network (@MLBNetwork) April 24, 2024

Webb, who led the majors in innings last year as well, has quietly been one of the best pitchers in baseball over the past three years. Since the beginning of 2021, Webb has gone 40-26 with a 3.02 ERA, a 2.98 FIP and a 1.11 WHIP in nearly 600 innings. While he finished second in last year's NL Cy Young voting to Blake Snell, he still hasn't made an All-Star team.

The 27-year-old right-hander doesn't strike a ton of batters out relative to his peers (career 8.1 K/9) and doesn't throw particularly hard (his fastball usually maxes out around 93-94 mph), but he's still able to shut down opposing lineups by limiting his mistakes (walks and home runs) and generating tons of weak contact. He's only allowed one home run and seven walks in six starts this year, which makes it tough for opponents to have big innings. Meanwhile, nearly 60% of the batted balls he allows stay on the ground.

Webb keeps his defense busy, but he proves it's still possible to succeed by pitching to contact in an era defined by record strikeout rates.