SF Giants HQ: What Logan Webb, Aaron Sanchez’s recent outings tell us about Gabe Kapler’s plan

With seven scoreless innings and eight strikeouts on Sunday against the Marlins, Logan Webb pitched the best game of his brief major league career.

If you thought Webb, who owns a 5.11 career ERA, finally turned a corner, Gabe Kapler might convince you otherwise.

“Surprisingly I think there’s another gear,” Kapler said candidly. “I’m sure you didn’t come out and expect me to say this about Logan.”

I’ll be honest: As someone who has watched Webb battle through several frustrating outings, I didn’t expect Kapler to open his press conference by tempering the enthusiasm for what his 24-year-old starter accomplished. I thought Sunday’s game would have been the right time to express pride in Webb’s achievement and confidence in his ability to build off the start, but Kapler took a far more measured approach.

“There were some moments there where he fell behind in counts, there were some misses to the arm side and the glove side that were substantial,” Kapler said. “I just think there’s an even better version of Logan. Today was a definite step in the right direction.”

To his credit, Kapler focuses on the process more than the results, and on Sunday, Webb’s process wasn’t perfect. He walked three hitters, threw only 54% of his pitches for strikes and consistently worked from behind in counts. That didn’t hinder Webb against the Marlins, who bounced into three double plays, but it’s not an approach that’s destined to help him against teams such as the Padres and Dodgers.

Webb isn’t the first Giants pitcher to have his success met with a challenge this season.

In his most recent start, righty Aaron Sanchez tossed five scoreless innings in a 3-0 win over the Marlins, but was removed after throwing just 67 pitches. The Giants are concerned about Sanchez’s fastball velocity and know he isn’t physically “feeling his best” in his return from a shoulder surgery that prevented him from pitching in 2020, but many pitchers in a similar position would have been given an opportunity to go deeper into a game.

Sanchez wasn’t afforded that chance, and it seems as if the Giants will continue to be cautious with him until they see more life on his pitches. Even if the results were favorable for Webb and Sanchez against Miami, the Giants think both right-handers are capable of throwing the ball better than they have thus far.

Manager’s corner

Why use Tyler Rogers and Jake McGee in the eighth and ninth innings of a four-run game?

That was the question on the minds of many Giants fans following a 5-3 win over the Marlins on Friday night. It was also the question on the minds of Giants fans when both pitchers were unavailable to relieve Kevin Gausman in the ninth inning of a tie game that ended in a 5-2 loss on Saturday.

Kapler, to his credit, understands why fans would question his decision-making process.

“I think we have to trust our other bullpen arms to get big outs for us,” the Giants’ manager said following Saturday’s loss. “Now you can say we could have trusted those arms last night and that would be a fair criticism, but I feel good about the decision.”

By burning Rogers and McGee in a lower-leverage situation on Friday, Kapler wasn’t able to use either pitcher behind Gausman in the ninth inning on Saturday. He instead called on righty Gregory Santos to make his second career appearance, and the moment seemed far too big for a 21-year-old rookie who battled command issues at times during spring training.

In an ideal scenario for the Giants, the club would have used different arms to protect a four-run lead on Friday so that their setup man and closer would have been ready to go in a tie game on Saturday, but I think it’s easy to see why Kapler feels good about the decision.

Had Santos or another reliever encountered trouble in the eighth or ninth inning on Friday, the Giants would have needed Rogers and or McGee to warm up and enter the game. A manager never expects his relievers to struggle, but it’s a lot easier to count on the team’s best options to put up scoreless innings than it is to bet on inexperience and raw talent.

I’m only a beat reporter, but it’s my belief that especially early in the season, a manager should do everything in their power to step on the gas and drive away with wins when they’re within reach. The Giants did that on Friday, and left Saturday’s game up to Gausman and the offense. The staff ace held up his end of the bargain with eight brilliant innings of one-run ball, and if the offense had provided more run support, the Giants likely would have wrapped up a series sweep on Sunday.

Later in the summer, when the coaching staff should have a much better handle on who it can trust in high-leverage spots, I’d say it would be wise to hold Rogers and McGee back for only the most important innings of close games. In April, when half of the bullpen is still finding its way and two rookies in Santos and Camilo Doval are still learning how to pitch in the majors, I have no problem with locking up a win when you can and asking a different group –the offense– to carry the team the next day.

Statcast Study

When Logan Webb ripped a 109.0-mile per hour triple into the right center field gap on Sunday, it didn’t take a deep dive into Statcast numbers for fans to understand what a rare and exciting moment the hit was for a Giants pitcher.

We decided to dive in anyway.

Since 2015, Giants pitchers have only produced 28 batted balls with exit velocities of 105 miles per hour or greater and 17 of those belong to Madison Bumgarner. Not surprisingly, of the eight balls hit harder than Webb’s 109.0 mile per hour shot into the gap, all eight were hit by Bumgarner, including a pair of 112.0-plus mile per hour home runs he crushed on Opening Day in 2017.

Webb’s triple bested a 108.9 mile per hour double hit by Shaun Anderson in the right-hander’s major league debut on May 15, 2019 against the Blue Jays as the hardest “non-Bumgarner” hit by a Giants pitcher, so if any pitcher is going to approach Bumgarner’s current Statcast records, Webb appears to have the best shot.

Webb’s triple was also notable for how far the ball traveled in the air, as Statcast tracked the ball at 388 feet. That’s the 14th-farthest ball hit by a Giants pitcher since 2015, and one of only two balls hit that far that didn’t clear an outfield fence. Ryan Vogelsong, who hit a 394-foot double in 2015 at Coors Field, had the other.

With a 377-foot flyout to center field later in the game, Webb joined Bumgarner as the only Giants pitcher to hit a pair of balls at least 375 feet in the same game.

Webb estimated he hadn’t tripled since high school, but noted that hitting has become easier for him now that he’s accustomed to doing it again. And while Anthony DeSclafani has been the pitcher the Giants have turned to off the bench when Kapler has needed an extra pinch-hitter or runner, an impressive day at the plate from Webb should give DeSclafani some competition for that role.