San Francisco Giants at Arizona Diamondbacks

Webb takes the ball at Chase Field at 6:40 PM MT on Tuesday, June 30 against a Diamondbacks rotation that has been gutted from top to bottom. Ryne Nelson, Michael Soroka, and Corbin Burnes are all on the injured list — Burnes hasn't thrown a competitive pitch for Arizona all year. The Diamondbacks have been plugging the rotation with callups since mid-June, most recently 22-year-old lefty Mitch Bratt, who made his MLB debut this week and brings a 2.84 ERA from Triple-A Reno into a big league job he wasn't supposed to have yet. Webb, meanwhile, has posted sub-2.00 ERA ball in June with 3 consecutive 8-inning outings. The form gap between these 2 starters is hard to overstate.

The Giants are wasting him. San Francisco signed Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, and Matt Chapman this offseason, spent north of $200 million in payroll, and put together a lineup that ranks near the bottom of MLB in walks, home runs, stolen bases, and runs scored. They have been shut out 7 times and held to 1 run or fewer in more than a third of their games. Casey Schmitt has been the most reliable bat in the lineup — which was not the plan. Webb can throw 8 innings of 1-run ball every 5 days and it still might not matter if this offense stays where it is.

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
SF	0	0	0	0	0	1	1	0	0	2	4	0
ARI	3	0	3	0	0	1	0	1	—	8	10	0

Arizona's 41-40 record looks OK from a distance, but the rotation situation puts the second half in serious jeopardy. On top of the 3 starters already gone, the Diamondbacks placed Jordan Lawlar on the 10-day IL last week with a hamstring strain. The offense has been functional enough to keep them afloat, but if they are running Bratt or Jose Cabrera out there every 5th day through July, this wild card spot gets harder to hold. The Giants are not a threat to run them out of the division — they are just trying to avoid embarrassment — but this is not the series Arizona wants to drop at home.

San Francisco has 10 pitchers on various injured lists right now, including 5 relievers on 60-day stints. The bullpen situation is ugly even by the standards of a team already losing 48 games. If Webb can eat innings deep into Tuesday's game — which he has done 3 times in a row — the Giants can paper over some of that bullpen depth problem. But this is a team that is selling off assets at the deadline, not adding them, and the offseason investment has not paid off in any measurable way. The best thing they have going on Tuesday is the pitcher, and that has been true most of the summer.

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