SAN FRANCISCO — Logan Webb hasn’t been known as a premier strikeout artist for most of his career, but he’s taken a hard swerve in that direction this year.
The two-time All-Star struck out seven over six innings in the Giants’ 11-5 series-opening win over the D-backs at Oracle Park on Monday night, securing the first 200-strikeout campaign of his seven-year career in the big leagues.
“I told [catcher Patrick Bailey] before the game, ‘I’m only six away, but I’m not counting,’” Webb said of his milestone. “Obviously, I knew about it, but the goal is to win every day and try to win every game that we can. I’m just happy we were able to do that.”
Jung Hoo Lee, Dominic Smith, Heliot Ramos, Matt Chapman and Bailey each homered to back Webb and power the Giants (73-71) to their 12th victory in their last 15 games, bringing San Francisco within three games of the Mets for the third and final National League Wild Card spot with 18 games left to play. (New York holds the tiebreaker, so the deficit is technically four games.)
“It’s just a blast to watch,” Webb said. “Obviously, when you’re pitching, you love when you see 11 runs. Even when I’m not pitching, just seeing these guys be resilient, stick to the plans and bring energy — we had a rough stretch for a while in every facet of what we were doing. Pitching, hitting, defense. It wasn’t the way we wanted to play baseball, and now, we’re playing the right way. We’re just giving ourselves a chance. We’re coming out with a lot of energy right now. We’ve just got to do it every day.”
Webb struck out Adrian Del Castillo swinging on a changeup to end the fifth inning and pick up his 200th strikeout of the season, becoming the first Giants pitcher to reach the threshold since Carlos Rodón in 2022.
“I’m super fired up for him,” Bailey said. “Just super proud. He works his butt off. He goes out there every fifth day, no matter how he feels and gives us all he’s got. To be able to accomplish that goal for him is really special.”
Webb is now averaging a career-high 9.8 strikeouts per nine innings, up from 7.6 in 2024. What’s been behind the surge in K’s?
“I think it’s just execution,” Bailey said. “I feel like this year, he’s been really dialed in about locating with pitches. I feel like the four-seam [fastball] has been really big this year with two strikes to kind of take some pressure off the changeup. The sweeper has been really good, too, to both sides. And obviously, one of the biggest things, too, is just count leverage. You strike more guys out when you get to two strikes, and he does a really good job of that.”
Webb’s pitch count stood at 94 through five, but the ever-durable right-hander returned to the mound in the sixth and worked a 1-2-3 inning to preserve a 4-4 tie.
The Giants promptly rewarded Webb’s 110-pitch effort by scoring five runs in the bottom of the sixth to pull away from their NL West rivals. Christian Koss — who committed a two-out error that allowed the D-backs to score three unearned runs off Webb in the second inning — delivered a two-run double to put the Giants ahead, 6-4, before Ramos broke the game open with a two-run blast that traveled a projected 435 feet out to left-center field.
Webb departed after allowing only one earned run on five hits, lowering his ERA to 3.12 over 30 starts this year. He currently leads the NL in both innings (184 2/3) and strikeouts (201), which should earn him Cy Young votes for the fourth consecutive season.
“It’s great that we were able to actually reward him because he’s picked us up so many times this year,” manager Bob Melvin said.
Webb’s dependability is nothing new for the Giants, but their newfound power certainly is. The five homers were the most they’ve hit in a single game at Oracle Park since July 31, 2021, marking the fourth time in their last six home games that they’ve erupted for 10 or more runs.
“That’s what we’ve been doing,” Melvin said. “It’s why we’ve been successful. It’s been a huge reason for it. Warm night here, the ball carries a little bit. I think even the ball Jung Hoo hit was like 94 [mph off the bat] and went out. We definitely have the guys to do it.”
