200+ innings, new cutter have Webb 'excited' for '25

PHOENIX -- Logan Webb established himself as the most durable pitcher in baseball last year. He continued to live up to that reputation in 2024.

By working six scoreless innings in the Giants’ 11-0 thrashing of the D-backs on Tuesday night at Chase Field, Webb crossed the 200-inning threshold for the second consecutive year and tied the Royals’ Seth Lugo for the most innings (204 2/3) in the Majors this season.

Webb entered Tuesday with 198 2/3 frames under his belt and reached the increasingly rare benchmark after retiring Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on a groundout to lead off the second. The 27-year-old right-hander is the only pitcher in the Majors to throw 200 innings in each of the last two seasons and the first Giants pitcher to accomplish the feat since Jeff Samardzija in 2016-17.

"Obviously, it’s cool every year to try to get to that,” Webb said. “I hope it’s 200 innings of quality innings. I haven’t done that this past month. I really needed that one, to be honest. I feel good finishing like that."

Patrick Bailey, Michael Conforto, Brett Wisely, Heliot Ramos and Tyler Fitzgerald each homered to power the Giants to their season-high fifth consecutive win, a run that began after the club was officially eliminated from playoff contention on Thursday at Baltimore. With a 7-1 start to their final road trip of 2024, the Giants (79-79) are back at .500 for the first time since Aug. 30 with four games left to play.

"Maybe during that stretch where we weren’t winning, we were just kind of getting tight,” Webb said. “We thought we had to do too much. I think we’ve done pretty well since we found out we were eliminated, which sucks, right? But I think we kind of just all put our heads together and said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to play loose, play fun and just go out there and enjoy it.’ And that’s what we’re doing right now.

"We’re beating playoff teams right now. It’s awesome. Obviously, it doesn’t fix that we’re not going to make the playoffs. But I think it’s something to build on."

San Francisco’s rotation has helped set the tone for the club’s recent hot stretch, as its starting pitchers have limited opponents to three earned runs or fewer in 16 consecutive games, recording a 2.18 ERA over that span. Webb kept that roll going by allowing only four hits while walking one and striking out three, lowering his ERA to 3.47 over a MLB-high 33 starts this year.

With an off-day on Thursday, Webb could have kept adding to his innings total by returning to start Sunday’s season finale against the Cardinals at Oracle Park, though he said he expected to shut it down after Tuesday, which will likely prevent him from leading the Majors in innings for the second consecutive year.

Still, Webb appears poised to reclaim the NL innings title, as he currently holds a comfortable lead over the Phillies’ Aaron Nola (194 1/3), the only pitcher who has thrown more innings (773 2/3) than the Giants’ homegrown ace (761 1/3) since the start of 2021.

"He takes pride in it, too,” manager Bob Melvin said. “Leading the league in innings pitched, all those things are important to him. That means he’s out there for his team. He’s tough to take out of a game. He’s always economical in his pitches. A lot of first-pitch swings off him. He throws the ball in the zone a lot, which lends to pitching innings. But he takes a lot of pride in that. As we’ve seen earlier in the year, when we were having some trouble getting some innings out of starters, you’re just so reliant on him to go deep into games and take some pressure off the bullpen. He’s done it all year.”

While Webb has consistently posted for the Giants, he expressed some dissatisfaction with his overall body of work this year, as his ERA is his highest since 2020. His signature changeup -- which was the second-most valuable pitch in the Majors with a +28 Run Value in 2023 -- plummeted to -4 this year, prompting him to introduce a cutter to give him another weapon to deploy against left-handed hitters.

Webb threw a season-high 20 cutters against the D-backs on Tuesday and said he hopes to gain more confidence in the pitch as he begins to look toward 2025.

"I think it’s just something I’ve kind of felt comfortable with,” Webb said. "I think the changeup has kind of been weird all year. I think it just helps with kind of getting them off some of the softer stuff down. That’s kind of my game. If I can do something that’s moving in to them -- you guys know I’ve tried to throw one for a while now. I finally found a grip that makes the ball actually go that way. I’m excited to keep tinkering with it. These last two games, I felt good throwing it."