San Francisco Giants Ace Thriving With New Ever Developing Pitch Repertoire

San Francisco Giants’ ace Logan Webb has been one of the most reliable starting pitchers in baseball over the last few years.

He announced his presence during his first full 162-game campaign in 2021, making 27 appearances, and 26 starts, recording a 3.03 ERA across 148.1 innings with 158 strikeouts.

That was the start of what has turned into a very successful career to this point for the fourth round pick in the 2014 MLB Draft out of Rocklin High School in Rocklin, California.

He was even better in 2022, recording a 2.90 ERA across 32 starts and 192.1 innings with 163 strikeouts. Webb doesn’t have the overpowering stuff where he will consistently blow hitters away with high velocity or crazy movement, but will always get the job done.

Damaging blows are hard to produce against him as he excels at making hitters put the ball on the ground. He has a 58.0% ground ball rate in his career, well above the league average of 42.5% that helps mitigate his just slightly below average strikeout rate of 22.1%.

Webb has done an excellent job of avoiding self-inflicted wounds as well with a miniscule walk rate of 5.8% in his career.

But, just as the case with any pitcher, he found himself needing to make an adjustment this offseason.

Hitters began showing a little more patience last year against his patented sinker/changeup combo that he has used for years to dominate hitters low in the zone.

Now, he has expanded to a legitimate four-pitch mix, bordering on five as his cutter is a weapon he started tinkering with in 2024, honed over the offseason and spring and is ready to unleash in games when needed.

"I'm just trying to mix it up, I'm trying not to be a one-dimensional guy," Webb said via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. "That fastball up, whether it's the two-seam, four-seam or cutter, it can be kind of a game changer."

In his first start of the season, things didn’t go too well against the Cincinnati Reds, surrendering three runs in five innings. But in his second outing agianst the Houston Astros, things started to click.

He threw seven strong innings, allowing only one earned run on five hits and zero walks to go along with six strikeouts. The only run scored against him came courtesy of a Jose Altuve solo home run in the fourth inning.

The new pitch mix that Webb possesses was on full display against Yordan Alvarez, who was in the torture chamber all night against the Giants’ ace.

In his first at-bat, it was a cutter up and away that the Astros star swung through. In the seventh inning with runner on first and protecting a two-run lead, he threw a slider down and in that Alvarez chased.

With his comfortability to throw the cutter in different places against elite hitters on the rise, Webb’s performance can be taken to another level.

"It's just a different look for me, and being able to do that and trying to mix things up to certain hitters that maybe I don't match up the best with, I think those are situations where I can throw something like that," Webb said.

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