Giants pitchers could earn All-Star nods, MLB honors and a trip to playoff baseball

San Francisco Chronicle​

14 hours ago

To understand how Logan Webb has evolved as an MLB pitcher this year, look no further than his recent start against the San Diego Padres.
The Padres have been a thorn in his side at varying points of his San Francisco Giants career, and they haunted him again in his start at Petco Park at the end of April. Webb, who thrives off pitching to contact, got dinked and doinked into one of the worst starts of his season — with little hard contact, the Padres put up five runs on nine hits in five innings against him.
So what did Webb do when the Padres came to San Francisco earlier this month? He adjusted, throwing more sliders at the lefty-heavy lineup than he had in any start since 2022. The altered approach propelled him through eight shutout innings, his best outing against a division foe in 2025, evening his record against San Diego at 4-4 despite an excellent 2.98 ERA.
'I've faced them so many times,' Webb said after the game. 'You've got to try and mix things up and try different things. We just put our heads together and said, 'We're going to try this.' It worked out.'
The Giants, though, wound up losing that game 1-0 in extra innings — a result that exemplifies this team's biggest strengths and weaknesses. Through the season's first two-plus months, the pitching makes this team competitive against any opponent — and their most dreadful stretches are characterized by the bats' inability to capitalize.
It's the pitching that could make the Giants a postseason contender.
That starts with Webb, the staff ace whose stated goal coming into the year, to evolve his repertoire, is paying dividends. Robbie Ray 's renaissance — with a repeatable delivery he says feels very much like his 2021 Cy Young self — gives the Giants one of the most formidable one-two punches in baseball, but the rotational depth behind them and the bullpen stands out as well.
The staff's 3.14 ERA heading into Friday's game against the Los Angeles Dodgers was second best in baseball. In a notable shift from last season, the starters are throwing plenty of innings (377⅔ through Thursday, sixth in MLB), and a less taxed bullpen hasn't given opponents any wiggle room late in games. Randy Rodriguez, Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers and Erik Miller all entered the Dodgers series with sub-2.00 ERAs among the Giants' league-leading 2.51 bullpen ERA over 233 innings.
What has worked best for the staff this year is perhaps best exemplified through Rodriguez. When asked to explain what has been key in harnessing his fastball and slider combo for a breakout year, he offered a simple response.
'Just attack the strike zone and make sure I don't give any free passes,' Rodriguez said through team interpreter Erwin Higueros last month after a win in Washington.
Strike-throwing has been such an emphasis that the Giants gamified it in spring training, and it has translated into the regular season. Their 3,986 strikes through Thursday were second most in baseball, a statistical representation of this team daring opponents to try and hit something hard off them. Which they haven't. Opponents had a paltry 27.8% hard-hit rate off San Francisco's arms entering Friday.
For a staff that is mostly homegrown, strike-throwing has been hammered into their heads, and perhaps will become a different challenge with the Automatic Ball-Strike system implemented across Triple-A.
'Regardless of if you're Tyler Rogers, underhand at 84 (mph), or if you're left-handed Erik Miller, or a starter like Kyle Harrison or Hayden Birdsong. It doesn't matter what style you have,' said Giants director of player development Kyle Haines. 'That's one of the biggest separators between major league hitters and minor leaguers. You can get minor league hitters by getting them to chase out of the zone. Big league guys are very disciplined, and the strikes translate as you play against better offensive players. If we're going to rely on getting guys just getting the chase-plus stuff out of the strike zone, that isn't going to work. But you can't just throw balls down the middle that are generic, either. It's a blend of throwing good command of a strike and the stuff will give us room for error.'
And it's also about that depth. The big league pitching may be their greatest strength on the field, but a deep roster of arms at every level could be their best ticket to get another bat to balance the scales — either by the deadline or down the line.
Wondering about new president of baseball operations Buster Posey 's philosophy on flipping a touted pitching prospect for a bat? He told the San Francisco Standard that he 'loved' his predecessor Brian Sabean's controversial trade of pitcher Zack Wheeler for Carlos Beltran, an all-time great hitter, in 2011. In retrospect, the trade didn't pay off for the Giants, but in Posey's eyes at the time and subsequently, it sent a much-needed signal from the front office that Sabean believed in the team.
That certainly sounds like a heavy hint that Posey won't shy away from a risky deadline trade.
Slightly overshadowed by the promotion of first baseman Bryce Eldridge from Double-A to Triple-A was right-handed pitching prospect Trent Harris' move to Triple-A, too. The 26-year-old son of former big leaguer Greg Harris with his own mean curveball joined a staff in Sacramento that has been so full this year that many of the starters had to piggyback off each other to get in their innings in during the first few weeks.
All that depth, acquired through an emphasis on scouting and drafting pitching in recent years, means the Giants have reinforcements on hand as needed, but also plenty of talent that might attract trade interest.
Lefty Carson Whisenhunt, well known around the league for his devastating changeup, would perhaps be the most coveted prospect on a Sacramento staff that also features starters Carson Ragsdale, Carson Seymour, Keaton Winn and Mason Black.
The Giants have such an overflow of arms that their big league rotation is brimming despite the injury to Justin Verlander. Harrison, Birdsong and Landen Roupp might be the three best young starters in the entire organization, and are grasping for opportunities. When Verlander returns to the rotation, one of them will likely be moved back to a relief role. That means Tristan Beck or Sean Hjelle could be out of a job in the pen.
Of that group, Birdsong has drawn the most intrigue from a handful of opposing teams' scouts that the Chronicle spoke to. Jordan Hicks, in the second year of his four-year, $44 million contract, was recently bumped from the rotation to the bullpen, but he could nevertheless draw deadline interest as an experienced high-leverage reliever.
The Giants could also stay out of the deadline fray and lean all the way in on their identity as a pitching and defense team. Webb and Ray are positioned not only for All-Star nods and later the Cy Young conversation, they're the leaders of a staff that could make waves deep into the 2025 season, and possibly deep into October.