High above Philadelphia, Logan Webb wondered if he had ever felt so low.
Everything had been going so well: He had grown up 100 miles northeast of Oracle Park, then been drafted by the Giants in the fourth round. His journey through the minor leagues had been mostly smooth. He had given up one run in 17 spring training innings and made the team out of camp. But three weeks into 2021, his first big league season, he could not seem to do anything right. He had been demoted to the bullpen before an injury forced San Francisco to start him again.
He trudged along the hallway of the Four Seasons and took a seat in rotationmate Kevin Gausman’s room, thinking about the clobbering he had just sustained at the hands of the Phillies: four runs in four innings to hike his ERA to 5.87.
“I don’t know if I’m good enough to pitch here,” Webb said.
Now, nearly a year later, he smiles at the memory. “He kind of looked at me like I’d said something about his mom,” Webb says. “He was mad at me. He pretty much told me to pull my head out of my ass.”
Gausman told him.
The moment was a “turning point,” Webb says. He had a 2.71 ERA the rest of the regular season. He went 14 straight starts without allowing more than two runs, the longest single-season streak in San Francisco history. He gave up one run in 14 ⅔ innings in the postseason. He was the only pitcher in the playoffs to last seven frames more than once. On Friday, 11 ½ months after his low point, Webb, 25, will start Opening Day for the Giants.
“He realized, ,” says Gausman, who now pitches for the Blue Jays. “You know, .” Gausman adds, “All of us knew it was there. We were just kind of waiting.”
Webb had to figure out who he was as a pitcher. He had to believe in that person. And he had to stop feeling sorry for himself.