Brandon Webb finally provided some reason for optimism last week by tossing three shutout innings in a rehab start at Double-A, but that all vanished in his follow-up start Sunday when he failed to make it out of the first inning while allowing four runs.
Afterward the rehabbing former Cy Young winner told Louie Horvath of MLB.com that he “felt pretty good” and “didn’t think there was a hard-hit ball” among the six hits he allowed while recording two outs, saying: “There were four of them that were ground balls in the hole, one little blooper.”
Even at his best Webb never succeeded because of his velocity, so inducing lots of ground balls is a good sign for one of the most ground-ball heavy pitchers in baseball, but ultimately he has an 11.57 ERA in three starts at Double-A and hasn’t faced big-league hitters since Opening Day of 2009. Texas is running out of time to get anything from their $3 million investment.