SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants’ series finale against the Padres lacked the fireworks of the previous night, but the club will happily accept the tradeoff if it means escaping with its second straight series win.
After all, “win the series” was the message of Tuesday night, as the Giants explained their strategy behind piling on to a nine-run lead. And less than 24 hours later, the Giants can consider them 2 for 2 in that department, knocking off the Padres, 2-1, Wednesday afternoon at Oracle Park.
“A big thing (Giants manager Gabe Kapler) was harping on was win the series,” said Luke Williams, who made his second start at third base and drove in the Giants’ only two runs. “We won both series, so I think that’s a great start. We’re going to try to keep it going and try to win some more series.”
The Giants got eight innings of one-run baseball from staff ace Logan Webb in his second start of the year, becoming not only the first starter in the majors this season to pitch into the eighth inning but also the first one to finish it. Webb needed only 96 pitches to strike out seven Padres while allowing four hits, including only two after the first inning.
Facing Webb’s counterpart in San Diego’s rotation, left-hander Sean Manaea, the Giants couldn’t match their 13-run explosion from the previous night. But a two-run double by Williams in the second inning proved enough support for Webb.
“Logan definitely held up his end of the bargain,” Kapler said.
Webb was on a pitch count of about 90-95 pitches Wednesday and spent his 96th on a change-up that dropped out of the zone and below the bat of center fielder Trent Grisham for his seventh and final strikeout, ending the eighth inning. Still, Webb was so good — and so efficient — that Kapler said it was “very tempting” to send him back out for the ninth, especially after an eighth that he considered Webb’s best inning of the game.
Consider Wednesday’s outing Webb’s last with any guardrails, at least in regards to pitch count.
“I think at this point, he’s ready for a full workload,” Kapler said.
After the Padres plated the first run of the game with Jake Cronenworth following up Manny Machado’s double with an RBI triple, Webb allowed only two more baserunners for the remainder of his outing. Things didn’t get dicey again until Camilo Doval entered for the save opportunity and loaded the bases in the ninth inning, only to get left-fielder Matt Beaty swinging on a slider out of the zone to end the game.
Rookie Heliot Ramos, batting cleanup and playing right field for the first time in his second MLB start, began the second inning by taking ball four, and was driven home, along with Mauricio Dubon, by a double Williams ripped in to the left field corner, to provide the Giants what would prove to be the decisive 2-1 lead.
In a one-run game, a defensive play by Williams at third base proved equally as crucial.
After Cronenworth’s first-inning triple, the Padres had a runner at third base with only one out, but they failed to bring him home.
Cronenworth took off from third the moment Luke Voit made contact, but with Williams at third, the decision proved futile.
Williams fielded the ground ball and fired to catcher Curt Casali, who laid the tag on Cronenworth with a step to spare.
That was the closest the Padres would come to scoring again off Webb, who has allowed two runs over 14 innings through his first two starts this season. He was the only member of the Giants starting five to complete six innings in the first time through the rotation, then in his second go-around did something nobody else in MLB has done yet this season.
With pitchers still building up arm strength from a condensed spring training, only four starters around the league have made it through seven innings in a start, let alone the eight that Webb completed Wednesday.
It was a personal best, too, as Webb had only pitched into the eighth inning twice in his career but never gone deeper than the 7 1/3 innings he tossed against the Mets last August.
Until his breakout in the second half of last season, Webb had been plagued by control issues that prevented him from pitching deep into games. Of the nine times Webb has completed at least seven innings in his four MLB seasons, seven have come since last August.
So, Webb had a request for pitching coach Andrew Bailey.
He had retired 18 of the last 20 batters he had faced and was staring down the eighth inning with his pitch count at 89.
“I told Bailes, if I’m cruising, let me pitch the eighth. I knew I hadn’t finished the eighth, so I wanted to do that,” Webb said. “If you give your team six (or) seven innings each time, that’s the goal.”
With the win, the Giants have taken two of three games in each of their first series of the season but are now tasked with taking that success on the road. Their only day off over the first three weeks of the season comes Thursday in Cleveland before they embark on a stretch of 13 games in 13 days, spanning five cities.
