San Francisco – San Francisco Giants pitcher Logan Webb set a new career-high in strikeouts after notching 10 in the Giants 4-2 two-game series-sweep over the Texas Rangers.
With the 10 strikeout performance, Webb became the youngest Giant to toss double-digit strikeouts since Madison Bumgarner in September 2013. Even more, San Francisco improved to 14-4 at home with today’s win, the best home record in the Major League.
“I thought Webby did a fine job today,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said. “I’m certainly satisfied with the result, satisfied with the line, satisfied with the strikeout total. But I’m going to stick with this messaging, he’s got more in there.
Webb’s performance continues San Francisco strong start on the mound to the season. The Giants starting staff entered Tuesday with a 2.93 ERA, the second-best in baseball behind the Chicago White Sox. Webb also bounced back from a dismal start last Wednesday in the Giants 6-5 loss against the Colorado Rockies where he didn’t make it out of the fourth inning.
After a shaky first inning, Webb responded strong to set up his career-high day. Following the first inning, Webb went on to retire 15 of the next 17 hitters he faced. He hit Rangers shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa with a pitch in the third and allowed a single to David Dahl in the fourth, who would go on to homer off of Webb later in the seventh that knocked Webb out of the game.
After Dahl’s single in the fourth, Webb went on to strike out the next five batters, including striking out the side in the fifth inning.
“After that first inning, I just went to Buster [Posey] and Curt [Casali] and they said ‘Hey, maybe we think you should pick up your tempo a little bit,’” said Webb regarding his adjustments after the first inning. “I was just like, ‘alright, let’s start to get some quick outs and start attacking these guys.’ And when I did that, obviously, the strikeouts started to kind of pile up so I was happy with that.”
“It speaks to his ability to make big pitches in big moments. And he’s certainly fearless at times,” Kapler added.
Kapler also explained that despite Webb’s career-high strikeout performance, that this isn’t the best we’ve seen of him yet.
“What excites us about Logan Webb is that we’re not going to be satisfied until we see his best and I don’t think we’ve seen it yet. I don’t think today was his best but certainly, he came out of it with a strong outing and a win and that’s what’s most important.
But I’m just gonna keep hammering it. This guy’s got a really, really high ceiling and there’s better in there. We want to continue to raise the bar for Logan because he can meet it. This is all about my belief in him, the staff’s belief in him, and his teammates belief in him.”
With Webb’s strong outing on the mound, the Giants offense picked up where they left off from Monday night’s win. Mike Yastrzemski had an early RBI double in the first inning and Brandon Belt picked him up shortly after with an RBI single to right.
San Francisco added another pair of runs in the sixth inning as Texas third baseman Charlie Culberson missed the throw on a routine grounder by Casali with two away, scoring Evan Longoria and Brandon Crawford who walked and singled in the inning, respectively.
The bullpen took over in the seventh and locked down the Rangers in the late innings as the combo of Camilo Doval, Caleb Baragar and Zack Littell held Texas to just a walk and a single while closer Jake McGee tossed a perfect ninth inning for his 10th save of the season.
After sweeping the Rangers, the Giants will look to carry their momentum as they’re set to travel for a two-city, eight-game road trip against the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Cincinnati Reds.
San Francisco is now tied with the Boston Red Sox for the best record in baseball (22-14) and currently own the best record in the National League pending on whether or not the St. Louis Cardinals win tonight against Milwaukee.
The Giants have won six of their last nine entering the four-game weekend series at Pittsburgh.
Photo by Giants/Twitter
