San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb ended spring training with a 10.97 earned run average after allowing nine runs to the Chicago Cubs on Friday.
But Webb said he goes into Thursday's season opener at the San Diego Padres trusting the process.
"I know it doesn't look good," the 2023 National League Cy Young Award runner-up said of the ERA, "but I'm actually somewhat happy with how I was feeling."
Given how Webb has pitched the last three years, he has earned the right to be trusted. His ERAs are 3.03, 2.90 and 3.25. He was 11-13 last year but led the majors with 216 innings and posted a career-high ground-ball rate of 62 percent.
Webb also averaged more than six strikeouts for every walk, making him the perfect Opening Day starter for a team that aspires to contend for the NL West title. San Francisco lured Bob Melvin out of the San Diego dugout in the offseason and then nabbed his top starter from 2023, signing NL Cy Young winner Blake Snell last week to a two-year contract.
Add power hitter Jorge Soler and third baseman Matt Chapman to a lineup that sorely needed big bats and this is a team that certainly isn't planning to play seller at the trade deadline. Especially if starters Alex Cobb and Robbie Ray are healthy for the second half of the season, as the team projects them to be.
Cobb, who had hip surgery on Oct. 31, has pitched in two minor league games and is progressing quicker than most anticipated.
"Velo was good, breaking stuff was good, he's on his way," Melvin said after an outing on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Padres are opening at home after splitting a two-game series last week with the Los Angeles Dodgers in Seoul, South Korea. They lost the first game 5-2 before outslugging Los Angeles 15-11 the following day.
Jake Cronenworth went 4-for-4 with a two-run triple and four RBIs in the second game, while Manny Machado launched a three-run homer in the ninth to break the game open as San Diego presented manager Mike Shildt with his first victory in a Padres uniform.
Shildt said the 16-hour flight to and from Seoul should help build a team camaraderie that might not have existed last year. Picked by some to win the World Series with a lineup consisting of Machado, Juan Soto, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Xander Bogaerts, the Padres finished 82-80 and missed the playoffs in perhaps the most disappointing season in franchise history. Soto was traded to the New York Yankees in the offseason.
"You go to Seoul and there's a next level of togetherness, you know, a long plane ride, a different country," Shildt said. "We had that experience to do it together, which allowed some opportunity for us to get together and just enjoy some off-the-field time."
San Diego will pitch Yu Darvish, who opened the season on March 20 against Los Angeles. He lasted 3 2/3 innings and 72 pitches, permitting two hits and an unearned run with three walks and three strikeouts.
Darvish is 2-3 with a 6.23 ERA in 11 career starts against the Giants, while Webb is 3-2 with a 2.50 ERA in 10 career games, nine of them starts, against the Padres.
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