Webb is good, and so is scoring.
Whoever first decided that baseball games, known for their slowly-unfolding narratives and leisurely turns, should instead operate quickly, would have been been beside themselves watching the start of Tuesday night’s MLB game between the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets.
If you’re one of those sweet folks who realizes at 6:46 p.m. that the game started at 6:45, and then grabs a beer before turning on the TV, you likely missed the top half of the first inning, when Logan Webb set down the side on just eight pitches. You might even have missed the bottom half of the inning, when Luis Severino did the same, but on 12 pitches.
And if you also detoured to the bathroom, as one should do when prepping for an extended stint on the couch, you perhaps missed the top of the second inning, when Webb rushed through the heart of the Mets order on a mere seven pitches.
Webb and Severino had quickly locked horns in a brilliant pitchers’ duel, each taking a slightly different approach to an excellent result. Severino was throwing more pitches but almost entirely avoiding hard contact. Webb was daring batters to hit the ball in play, which invariably always went towards dirt rather than air, and then relied on the best defense that money an arbitration year, a Minor League deal, and a pillow contract can buy.
Too easy for Thairo pic.twitter.com/Ga5T83B0Hn
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 24, 2024
Through four innings, Severino was perfect, at least in the baseball vernacular sense of the word. Webb, on the other hand, had allowed two hits, but been in no real danger, and had thrown 43 pitches to Severino’s 57.
It was in the fifth inning where the two starters, operating on a level of cruise control that made even the Chevy patch on the jerseys jealous, began to diverge in results rather than just process. With one out in the top half of the inning, DJ Stewart hit a soft line drive to left field; the pitch from Webb was a sinker, and the hit from Stewart was emulating that very action, diving down in a manner that seemed to assure a hit. Instead, Michael Conforto, known much more for shoulder injuries than good defense, rushed in and never stopped rushing, dove, caught the ball, landed firmly on his shoulder, and barrel rolled for style points, notching another quick out for his pitcher.
Con artist pic.twitter.com/1LVixfwomV
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 24, 2024
There’s a fun bit of baseball poetry that results in hitters normally getting to bat immediately after making a notable defensive play, and indeed, Conforto led off the bottom half of the inning. And he led off by hitting a ball to a nearly identical spot as the one he caught, as if to stick his tongue out at Jeff McNeil, an infielder moonlighting in left field who most certainly did not catch it.
Baseball is funny, and sometimes contagious. The Giants, who had seen 12 hitters come to the plate and 12 hitters head back to the dugout dejected from a failed mission, seemed to watch with awe as Conforto poked a single. It was as if one of them turned to the group and said, wait, you can do that?
Two pitches later, Matt Chapman followed suit and singled. Patrick Bailey had perhaps the most impressive contact of the inning, lining a ball the other way, but it found a glove. And then Thairo Estrada provided that bit of clutch hitting that the Giants have slowly been starting to find, scoring Conforto, and, critically, moving to second (with Chapman to third) when McNeil’s throw home was mistakenly not cut off.
After four innings, the Giants had zero hits. And then, after four batters, they had three hits.
But why not make it four, thought Mike Yastrzemski, who stacked two more runs on the brand new lead.
Offense from the defense pic.twitter.com/v2Edcy774h
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 24, 2024
That one inning was all that was needed to separate a strong night from a great night. Severino would leave after the sixth inning, with three earned runs and a loss marking themselves as dependents on his tax form. Webb would continue to ride a steady dose of soft contact and brilliant infield defense until he’d pitched eight shutout innings, with Bob Melvin trusting him to work through a late-night jam and get the ovation he so strongly deserved.
And the offense, while not dominant, continued to show their dedication to not Caining the Giants ace. They added on in the bottom of the seventh — which surely made Melvin’s trust in Webb an easier choice to make — when Estrada tripled, Yastrzemski singled him home, and LaMonte Wade Jr. had a glorified infield double to make it a 5-0 game.
Yaz knocks in his third RBI of the night pic.twitter.com/jcku7f9y4x
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) April 24, 2024
There would be no Caining. There would be no distress over squandering another brilliant outing — one that ran Webb’s streak of scoreless innings to 19.
Logan led the way pic.twitter.com/C6Po4Szel2
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) April 24, 2024
The closest we got to drama was a ninth inning appearance by Tyler Rogers that prompted the following text exchange between me and my mother, a very casual Giants fan for decades, who is watching the games rather than just reading about them for the first time:
Mom: Why are we doing this ninth inning thing again??
Me: It’s a time-honored tradition in Giants baseball!
Mom: Some traditions need to be updated, retired, or thrown out!
She’s not wrong, though Doval replaced Rogers and made short work of what remained of New York’s feeble attempt at getting back in the game.
The Giants won 5-1. They secured their first home series victory of the season. The look ready to finally take advantage of having one of the best pitchers in the world on their team.
Somewhere, Matt Cain is smiling … just, maybe this kind of smile.