San Francisco Giants’ Bob Melvin Loving What He Is Seeing From His Ace on the Mound

The San Francisco Giants know that if they are going to be competitive this season, it will be on the back of their pitching.

Manager Bob Melvin is still seeking the right combination to rely on for the lineup, as there are a few players off to startlingly slow starts. Two starters, catcher Patrick Bailey and first baseman LaMonte Wade Jr., are hitting under .100.

Star free-agent addition, shortstop Willy Adames, hasn’t heated up yet, hitting .158 with one double, still waiting for his first home run with his new team.

Luckily, others have stepped up, such as Mike Yastrzemski, Jung Hoo Lee, Heliot Ramos and Tyler Fitzgerald, to help fill the void for now. Veteran Wilmer Flores has provided a nice source of power in the early going, too.

If the Giants can produce at a near league average level offensively, they are going to surprise a lot of people this year because their pitching looks legit.

Anchoring their starting rotation is the ever-reliable Logan Webb.

He may not be the first name people think of when speaking about some of the best pitchers in baseball, but he deserves to be in the conversation, given his durability and reliability. Whenever it is his turn through the rotation, he is taking the ball and producing at a high level.

Webb isn’t producing gaudy strikeout numbers or lighting up the radar gun, which some people believe is a prerequisite to be considered an ace. But he gets the job done, limiting damaging contact by keeping the ball low in the zone and generating a ton of ground balls.

In the past, he has relied on a trusted sinker/changeup combo to get him through. But this year, he is expanding that repertoire to include different kind of fastballs to give hitters a different look at the plate and more successful change location.

A four-seamer, two-seamer and cutter are now being worked into the mix with successful results.

In his second start of the season on Tuesday against the Houston Astros, it was on full display during seven masterful innings.

He struck out six with zero walks, allowing only five hits. The only run scored against him came via a Jose Altuve solo home run in the fourth inning.

One player who experienced the new pitch mix firsthand to devastating results was three-time All-Star Yordan Alvarez. Webb was mixing and matching his arsenal agianst one of the most feared sluggers in the game, drawing the attention and praise of his manager.

"You saw some of the takes and some of the swings -- it's different now," Melvin said via Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports Bay Area. "Alvarez [got] a couple in, a cutter in, he's never seen that one from him before. With the sweeper and changeup, it's really a four-pitch mix and it's both sides of the plate, which is going to make him better. He needed all that tonight."

Webb has already reached a relatively high level, but this evolution could help take him to another one.

Having more pitches to confidently rely on can only be a good thing when facing off against hitters who are constantly looking for and finding any little edge they can take advantage of.

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