The one who got away

For a brief period of time, from May 14th to June 4th, 2022, Stuart Fairchild was a Giant.

Don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t remember: for most, he was a name in a Tweet, an obscured face in the outfield, a statue in the batter’s box, a puzzle piece that didn’t quite fit, one of the hundreds of minor signings and dealings orchestrated by Farhan Zaidi at the time.

He appeared in five games that year, patching up a hole center after an injury to Austin Slater, and went 0-for-8 at the plate. He struck out 3 times. He reached base once—on a fielder’s choice or an error, I’m not too bothered to dig around and find out specifics—and scored a run.

Fairchild did get the Brisbee treatment (subscription required) due to his high-draft cache in 2017 (2nd pick in 2nd round), but that didn’t save him from the churn of the front office’s threshing machine. Deemed chaff at the time, he was DFA’d to clear a spot on the 40-man roster. The Reds claimed him off waivers days later, and apparently he’s been there ever since.

There were no Fairchild diehards in attendance, no smattering of applause last night when his name was announced over the PA system as a pinch hitter for Luke Fraley in the 8th. The horror fans felt watching him surge around the bases as his sky-high fly landed at the base of the wall within arms reach of both Michael Conforto and Tyler Fitzgerald had nothing to do with his him—just the generic horror any fan would experience as they watch a winnable game against a slumping team slip away in the most gauche manner.

The history against the club was obviously consequential to the player, but to us, it’s just an extra dab of ghost pepper hot sauce on your 12th hot wing of the night—who’s taking an inventory of pain at that point?

The inside-the-park homer extended the Reds lead to just two runs in the 8th, but spiritually, it was an end.

Cincinnati had lost 8-games in a row, the Giants were still in shock from a 3-7 road trip that ended in a lashing from the Rockies. I imagine both squads were optimistic about their chances on Friday, at least as optimistic as any team can feel while free-falling.

After a string of injuries to San Francisco’s typical starters, Friday’s lineup was flecked with familiar faces like Casey Schmitt and Heliot Ramos. A different look to the starting nine had to be a net positive at this point, especially with Logan Webb on the hill. A home series against the slumping Reds—what an opportunity!

Cincinnati had a similar It can’t get much worse outlook, and used that to their advantage. The Reds came out swinging against Webb, and much like his previous two opponents, it worked. The Giants’ starter still managed to pitch 7 innings, but he was in the stretch often and the dynamic and unrelenting speed on the base path made typically manageable contact a challenge to navigate.

Through three innings, Elly de la Cruz singled twice (on two well located change-ups), stole two bases, and scored twice on RBI hits by Spencer Steer. Thairo Estrada homered against Andrew Abbott in the 1st, and a bloop single off the bat of Tyler Fitzgerald cashed in Heliot Ramos’s lead-off double in the 2nd, but by the 3rd the offense was out of gas. Cincinnati took a 3-2 lead in the 4th on a two-out double off the bat of TJ Friedl that scored Will Benson from first.

Webb surrendered 7 hits, 2 walks and 3 runs (2 earned) through the first four innings. The aggressive approach exhibited by Boston and Philly again worked for Cincy: look for strikes, be aggressive on anything up in the zone, and think back up the middle and opposite field. All seven of those early knocks against Webb came within the first three-pitches of the at-bat.

It wasn’t until the 5th that Webb was able to put Cincy hitters on their heels. He faced the minimum through his last three innings of work and closed out his night by doing the seemingly impossible: getting De La Cruz to ground into a double-play.

The adjustment Webb made going into this start was to use his sinker more. The change-up is his signature, but it’s become a bit predictable. Offspeed loses its effectiveness when there isn’t speed to play off of.

Webb threw both his fastball and change-up around 40% of the time (a 10% increase for his sinker from the start in Philly). It’s a shift that I think makes sense even if it didn’t necessarily produce the results he was looking for last night. But one could argue that he could go further. Maybe the ideal mix is a more even spread from sinker-change-slider (like it was way back in the Fairchild days of 2022)?

The breaking ball appears to be the odd man out with usage hovering around 20% these past two seasons. Obviously the roughly 40-30-20 mix worked, but Webb’s high-contact rate means he’s always walking a fine line. Infield hits, bloops, walks, and stolen bases seem to pose more of threat when he’s on the mound. His hard-hit rate is still incredibly high, and the Whiff-rate is still very low, but so far in 2024, Webb has seen a one-K per 9 dip (8.08 K/9 to 7.09 K/9) in his strikeout rate, and I wonder if his slider (labeled a “sweeper” on most stat sites) is the problem.

Over his career, the slider has always been his best weapon in terms of swing-and-miss, though that doesn’t appear to be the case so far in 2024. Webb’s overall whiff rate with the pitch is down from last season (28.6% to 23.4%), the rate he’s bagging strikeouts with the pitch has halved from 36.5% to 17.1%, and his efficiency with the pitch when bagging those K’s (Putaway-%) has also been halved from 20.8% in 2023 to 10.3%.

Last night, he threw the breaking ball 20 times. Reds hitters offered at it only four times, putting it in play thrice, fouling it off once while coaxing zero swings out of the zone. Tyler Stephenson singled one that was up and over the heart of the plate to lead off the 2nd. Mike Ford took three consecutive up and off the plate in the 3rd, and after that, Webb rarely offered it again.

The feel for it just isn’t there, and hitters are noticing. With it off the table, they can eliminate the pitch from their list of worries and sit more comfortably on the sinker or change-up. The avenues to getting outs become dangerously thinned. Sans slider, Webb’s pitch-mix triangle of effectiveness is nothing more than a predictable line between two points.

To be fair, the Giants’ problems as a whole are certainly bigger than Webb’s. 7 innings of 3 runs, 2 of them earned, should be enough to win a baseball game. A fourth run shouldn’t be a death sentence. But with all the injuries and call-ups and line-up shuffles, the results have stayed the same. Everything is strained, and there’s just little dimensionality to the Giants play right now.