Later in a mediation Thursday to explain Joey Bart’s promotion, Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi was asked if Heliot Ramos might be next. The conventional wisdom is that Bart is the first of many future stars to arrive at Oracle Park, with Ramos soon on the way, and Marco Luciano, Hunter Bishop, Alexander Canario and others to follow.
However, that is not entirely true. We can look back on five or six years from now and remember Bart as he was a trailblazer for the next great Giants team, but it is possible that he will be seen as the second to arrive. Logan Webb came here last year, and like Bart, Webb is just 23. While he has never been at the top of prospect lists, the Giants always believed that Webb was undervalued by evaluators and that he had top-of-the-rotation potential . He showed that Friday.
Working with Bart for the first time at the major league level, Webb threw a career-high seven innings and appeared for 100 pitches for the first time. He struck out eight and crossed by his later innings, as the Giants beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 6-2 to win a fourth straight.
It was a big win for a team that came back in the Wild Card race. It was also a glimpse of the future. Webb is just 27 days older than Bart.
“He’s pretty good, huh?” Webb said, smiling. “I’ve known Joey for the last two years. He’s one of the biggest competitors. He’s fun to watch and it’s fun to work with him. He’s going to be a special player.”
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Webb has had a solid start to his second year, entering with a 3.54 ERA in five starts. But he had just thrown 20 1/3 innings due to ineffective innings, and he needed 43 pitches to get through the first two Fridays. However, something clicked, and Webb started pounding the zone with a good fastball exchange combination. Before he knew it, he was out in the seventh for the first time as a big leaguer.
Webb said Bart took a different approach, encouraging him to attack with his fastball and stay put. Of Webb’s 102 pitches, 55 were fastballs and 34 were substitutions played off the heater.
“It’s what me and Joey are talking about,” Webb said. “It’s what he likes to do.”
In the dugout, manager Gabe Kapler and his coaches looked at Webb pitch to make contact and realize it worked for him.
“He started coming into the zone and looking for the contact and got in touch early,” Kapler said. “I think he really learned that it does not hurt him. His stuff is good enough that he can just attack with it.”
The staff also looked like another young player. While the Giants pulled away because of Evan Longoria’s 300th homer and Wilmer Flores’ third in three games, it was Bart’s walk late in the game that had Kapler whispering about the future. The Diamondbacks had Alex Dickerson intentionally running for Bart, who continued on his second night in the major leagues a calm record of 10-pitch records and a walking sign that forced him into a run. As Bart began to crush jobs and get close, Kapler turned to bank coach Kai Correa and said “despite what’s happening here, this is a story.”
“I thought Joey’s at-bat after the deliberate walk to Dickerson was really an important moment,” Kapler said. “It was so professional and he never got out of control. It was not, oh, there was this deliberate walk out for me, so now I have to do more. It was actually just as calm as anything else he was doing. That was really promising. “
It was the kind of plate appearance that makes you feel good about predicting a young slugger will have a long career. Longoria was that type of player when he was also a rookie, and in his 13th year in the major leagues, he became the 150th major league player to hit 300 homers.
[RELATED: Longoria crushes 300th homer of career]Longoria has gotten this far with a good approach on the plate. He said he saw the same from Bart, who also doubled from the right field wall, noting that most young hitters could get out of their stretch zone and weaken in bad places after a deliberate walk to load the bases. Bart was as calm as ever.
“He has a chance to be pretty special,” Longoria said.
