SAN FRANCISCO — Word to the rest of baseball: Logan Webb is on a roll.
So, too, was his opponent Tuesday evening, Luis Severino, and in a battle to see which starter would break first, Webb outlasted the Mets right-hander to guide the way to a 5-1 win, only the third time all season the Giants have prevailed in consecutive games.
Webb walked off the mound for the final time to a standing ovation from the paid attendance of 25,453, saluting him for eight scoreless innings. He scattered six hits, walked one and more or less mowed through the Mets lineup before handing off a comfortable lead to Tyler Rogers and Camilo Doval for the final three outs.
The Giants’ winning streak with their ace on the hill grew to four, with Webb going at least seven innings in all of them. Dating back to the one run he allowed in a win over the Rays last Saturday, Webb has reeled off 19 consecutive scoreless innings and has a 0.93 ERA since the Giants last lost one of his starts.
A telltale sign of a sinkerballer at his best is his ability to keep the ball on the ground, and besides a couple hits, the Mets didn’t put one of Webb’s pitches in the air until the fifth inning. All but four of the 24 outs recorded by Webb came via the strikeout or ground ball, including a 4-6-3 double play that erased Starling Marte after he singled to lead off the fourth.
The running joke among the outfielders about playing behind Webb, the league-leader in ground-ball rate, is that it can be a bit of a bore. But Michael Conforto stayed on his toes enough to know to leave them momentarily when D.J. Stewart lifted the Mets’ first pop fly of the night into shallow left field.
Conforto charged the sinking fly ball and corralled it with a diving catch, losing his cap in the process.
It was a do-it-all kind of night for Conforto, who also provided the leadoff hit that kickstarted a three-run rally in the fifth inning that proved to be all the support Webb required. He raced home on an aggressive send from third-base coach Matt Williams when it looked like he could represent the only run from either team all night.
Reaching second on a single from Matt Chapman, Conforto had just rounded third when Jeff McNeil fielded Thairo Estrada’s one-out single in shallow left field. Williams didn’t hesitate with his green light, and Conforto’s fingertips crossed home plate as McNeil’s throw arrived off-line.
Conforto’s single to lead off the inning, a bloop that fell in front of McNeil in left field, was the Giants’ first hit of the night.
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Estrada added a triple off reliever Drew Smith in the seventh and scored on Mike Yastrzemski’s second RBI knock of the night. Yastrzemski drove in three of the Giants’ runs from the No. 7 hole and scored another.
The three runs the Giants scored in the fifth were more than Severino had allowed over 16 innings across his previous two starts. Facing the Giants for the first time in his career, the former Yankee took a 2.14 ERA into Tuesday’s start but walked off the Oracle Park mound with it at 2.67.
With eight scoreless innings, Webb lowered his ERA to 2.33, sixth-best in the National League.
Up next
Making his return to Oracle Park, Sean Manaea (1-1, 4.12) opposes the newest left-hander in the Giants’ rotation, Blake Snell (0-3, 11.57), in the series finale. The Giants are seeking to win three games in a row for the first time all season. First pitch is scheduled for 12:45 p.m. on NBC Sports Bay Area.