David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports
Logan Webb got the ball down, and a few struggling Giants hitters got it up.
The ostensible No. 6 starter, who just keeps finding himself back in the rotation, was excellent in a ballpark where that is difficult, and the Giants used three home runs to blast their way past the Reds, 6-3, in the series opener Monday in Cincinnati.
The Giants (25-16) have taken three of five games on their eight-game road trip and moved a full game and 2.5 games up on the Padres and Dodgers, respectively, before either had begun play on the day.
The Giants’ starting pitching has been the biggest strength — and the best in baseball — en route to carrying them atop the NL West, and it’s a rotation that Webb is not supposed to be in. First Johnny Cueto went down to create a Webb-spaced hole, and then Aaron Sanchez took his turn on the injured list. The 24-year-old Webb, the only current rotation member viewed as a sure thing to return next season, has begun to run with the opportunity.
Sporting some fuzz above his upper lip for Mustache May, Webb turned in his second straight solid start, this one a six-inning, no-run, six-hit, one-walk sterling outing. He did not have his best stuff but extracted some of his best results, striking out just three but consistently getting ground balls from powerful Reds hitters. In a park nicknamed the Great American Small Park, the Reds hit nine balls over 95 mph off Webb, but could not get air underneath. Of the 18 outs Webb recorded, just three came from flyballs.
This is no coincidence. Entering the start, Webb was sixth among starters (who have pitched at least 30 innings) in the majors with a 57 percent groundball rate. His two-seamer, especially, has been difficult to get under. (Alex Wood is first at 61.5 percent, which is also not an accident: The Giants try to induce ground balls.)
Kapler pulled Webb after just 86 pitches in a game they led 5-0, but would soon get more nerve-racking. Jarlin Garcia was wild, with a walk and a wild pitch, and just surrendered one run in the seventh; Matt Wisler allowed two home runs in recording two outs of the eighth. But Caleb Baragar and Tyler Rogers bailed the club out.
The Giants’ hitters did enough to compensate for a poor bullpen effort, and the hitters who did the damage were especially encouraging.
Wilmer Flores has been the most frigid in a cold Giants lineup, entering batting .198 without much power. His play Monday raised other caution flags — his arm from third was an issue — but his bat may have awoken. Against righty Reds standout Sonny Gray, the righty slugger went the other way in the fourth for a two-run shot that extended their lead to 3-0. It was his first dinger since May 4.
Mike Yastrzemski had not hit a home run since … oh, Sunday, but he hit his second in as many days in the fifth. Against Gray — another Vanderbilt product and friend — Yaz blasted a 430-foot, majestic swat to right-center for a two-run long ball.
Mauricio Dubon, who has had rotten luck in a season in which he entered with a .604 OPS, will not have to be frustrated by hard hits that find gloves if he hits more over the fence. His sixth-inning no-doubter to left put a big smile on his face as he rounded third, and it didn’t leave his face in the dugout.
Speaking of Dubon, the Giants added another in the eighth with some ingenuity and some play from Cincinnati that could have borrowed from the Giants infielder. While Dubon sniffed out a potential rundown-turned-into-a-run play Sunday, the Giants may have tried the same tactic themselves. With two outs, Austin Slater got picked off first and forced in a pickle, and Darin Ruf — not the fleetest of foot — dashed home to score before Slater was tagged out. The Reds never even checked on him. The Giants got their runs from big ball and small ball.
If the slow-starting bats in their lineup heat up, the first-place Giants can hit another gear. Unless their bullpen stalls more than it did Monday.