Brandon Webb throws scoreless inning in instructional league

Brandon Webb wasn’t able to make it back from shoulder surgery to pitch for the Diamondbacks this season, but he did take the mound in an instructional league game this afternoon. The good news is that he threw a scoreless inning, getting a pair of ground outs and a fly out while allowing one hit. The bad news is that according to Nick Piecero of the Arizona Republic his fastball was clocked at just 81 miles per hour. Prior to missing nearly all of the past two seasons with shoulder injuries Webb averaged around 88.5 miles per hour with his fastball, so he was never a particularly hard-thrower, but obviously he’ll need to rediscover some of that lost velocity to re-emerge as anything close to his pre-surgery self. He has plenty of time, because this afternoon’s outing is just the first significant step on a load road back, but after making $15 million to throw a grand total of four innings in the past two seasons the impending free agent’s next deal will be very light on guaranteed money and very heavy on incentives.