When Giants ace Logan Webb made his MLB debut with the team in 2019, Bruce Bochy was in his final season as San Francisco’s manager.
And right away, Bochy knew the Giants had a special pitcher on their hands.
Bochy stopped by NBC Sports Bay Area's broadcast booth Saturday after the 2012 team held their 10-year reunion at Oracle Park. When he joined Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow for the top half of the second inning, Webb was just getting started on a masterful performance against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
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With Webb on the mound in front of them, Krukow had to ask: “Did you foresee this type of success when you first saw [Webb] coming in? Did he project to be as good as he is now, to you?”
It turns out Webb’s raw talent -- and one pitch in particular -- clued Bochy in on the then-22-year-old’s star potential.
“Yeah, he really did,” Bochy responded. “And I’m not just saying that. I mean, you know. You’ve got a natural power sinker like that, I mean, you can’t teach that. You knew his off-speed pitches would get better and his changeup was getting better.”
Webb was called up by the Giants on Aug. 17, 2019, and he made his debut for the team that drafted him that night against the Arizona Diamondbacks. His one earned run and seven strikeouts across five innings of work were indicative of what the franchise could come to expect from the young right-hander.
“Sometimes you have to get that sense of belonging, and that’s all it would take with him,” Bochy said. “But it was evident that this guy was going to be a really good big league pitcher.”
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Webb has lived up to those expectations, from his current dominance on the mound to his 2021 campaign that helped lead the Giants to the playoffs,
Now a 25-year-old at the top of San Francisco’s rotation, he most certainly belongs.