Logan Webb hits new MLB career milestone, shows how far he's come as Giants ace originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — As a graphic appeared on the scoreboard and the crowd started to rise and cheer, Logan Webb walked slowly back to the dugout at Oracle Park. He stayed focused, because the Giants still were in a close game at the time, but he did sneak one look back at the scoreboard.
Webb didn’t need anyone to tell him that he had just reached 200 strikeouts, the reason for the celebration. It has been a goal all season long, and before the game, he joked about it with catcher Patrick Bailey.
“I’m only six away,” he told Bailey. “But I’m not counting.”
The staff ace ended up getting seven of them, becoming the first Giant to reach 200 strikeouts since Carlos Rodón in 2022 and the first pitcher in the National League to do it this year. His previous career-high was 194, and he’ll end up demolishing that.
On a night when the Giants did their best to calm the talk about a playoff push, Webb didn’t shy away from what 200 strikeouts meant to him. He credited Bailey and pitching coach JP Martinez, along with Justin Verlander and Robbie Ray, two veteran mentors who have done it a combined 14 times in the big leagues.
“It’s really cool,” Webb said.
It was also a long time coming for one of the game’s best.
Webb broke through in 2021 and finished second in Cy Young Award voting two seasons later, but he has never rested on his success. He has worked hard over the years to become better at holding runners, and has made remarkable strides in that department this season. By one metric — Net Bases Prevented — he now ranks among the top 10 in baseball.
Webb constantly is tinkering with his times and looks, and where he stands on the rubber. The biggest change, though, has been to his pitch mix.
When he nearly won a Cy Young in 2023, Webb threw his changeup 41 percent of the time. By Run Value, it was the most effective pitch in the big leagues, but last season, Webb noticed that opposing hitters were a bit too comfortable leaning out over the plate to try and hit his changeup and sinker. He added a cutter, and this year he has thrown the pitch more than 200 times.
His changeup usage is down to 23 percent and he mixes in a few more four-seamers, giving hitters another wrinkle to think about.
Webb adores his four-seamer, although multiple pitching coaches have groaned about it sometimes, given how dominant his sinker is. He has ended 34 strikeouts with his four-seamer after totaling 36 the previous two seasons combined, which has helped this push for 200 strikeouts.
“I think it’s just execution,” Bailey said. “I feel like this year he’s been really dialed in about locating pitches, and I feel like the four-seam has been really big this year. It takes some pressure off the changeup, the (slider) has been really good, too, to both sides. And one of the biggest things is just count leverage. You strike more guys out when you get to two strikes and he does a really good job of that.”
For years, Webb has been one of the game’s top groundball pitchers. He’s still tied for the league lead in double plays, but there are new tools to use this year, and that showed Monday. He dug deep with the potential go-ahead run on third, striking out Adrian Del Castillo with a changeup to reach 200. He would add one more in the sixth inning.
“That really wasn’t him before. It was more (pitch to) contact and try to get deep into games that way,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Now he can get strikeouts when he needs to and groundballs when he needs to. He’s just a better pitcher now. He continues to get better. He reads swings well, he sees how guys are swinging, and also the teams that he has come up against a lot — the Padres and Dodgers, teams that have a lot of at-bats against him — he’s getting different swings out of them now.”
Melvin noted that Webb does plenty of homework between starts, always looking for a different way to approach his next game. Earlier this season, he built off that and threw 41 sliders in a game against the Padres. A few weeks later, he threw 29 cutters at the Dodgers.
Webb’s next start will be against Los Angeles, and it will be a huge one for a team that all of a sudden is just three games out in the Wild Card race. It also will give Webb a chance to reach 200 in a different way. He should have at least three more starts this season, and he needs 15 1/3 innings to get to 200 for a third straight year. Regardless of where that number ends up, Webb should lead the NL for a third straight season.
It’s a combination that is hard to beat. The Giants have the game’s most durable starter, and in his seventh big league season, he also has become one of the league’s best strikeout pitchers.
“He’s a unicorn as far as that goes,” Melvin said.
