Quite possibly playing on fumes after an early morning arrival following a grueling trip, the San Francisco Giants hope to be able to count upon a well-rested Logan Webb when they open a three-game home series against the Washington Nationals on Monday night.
Energized at least somewhat by an extra-inning win over the Chicago Cubs in a Sunday night contest leading into their long flight home, the Giants get a rematch with a Nationals team they beat twice in three tries in a visit to the nation’s capital in April.
Webb (3-4, 4.25 ERA) pitched one of those victories, benefitting from a double-digit uprising in a 10-5 triumph. The win improved him to 5-1 with a 4.29 ERA in seven career starts against the Nationals.
The right-hander returned from a 24-day layoff to pitch twice on the Giants’ just completed 5-5 trip, limiting the Colorado Rockies and Milwaukee Brewers to a total of one run and four hits over 11 1/3 innings.
Matt Chapman, hero of Sunday’s 2-1 win with a 10-inning RBI single, believes Giants pitchers are in for a treat with the San Francisco offense finding its rhythm.
“Everybody’s still believing,” he boasted in a postgame interview with NBC on the field following Sunday’s win. “We started off slow, and it’s easy to get down. Hitting is hard. You can all get in a rut. But if you believe and you keep grinding …
“We have a lot of veteran guys. We know it’s a long season and it shows. We had a tough first month, but we’re coming.”
One team the Giants find themselves chasing in the National League standings is Washington, which opened a six-game Western swing by taking two of three from the Arizona Diamondbacks in the past three days.
With six different players contributing home runs and Luis Garcia Jr. bombing a pair, the Nationals outscored Arizona 20-2 in wins Friday and Saturday before suffering a 5-1 loss on Sunday.
The runaway nature of the victories and seeing his team win the eighth of its 11 road series this season had outfielder Daylen Lile boastful to the media during the visit to Phoenix.
“I’m proud for the team and where we are,” said Lile, one of the six Nationals to homer in the two wins, “because I know a lot of people had doubts about us, especially as young as we are. I feel like we’re shutting a lot of people up. Hopefully, we can continue that.”
The Nationals are scheduled to hand the ball to right-hander Miles Mikolas (1-5, 6.39) in Monday’s series opener.
The 37-year-old relieved PJ Poulin four batters into an April meeting against the Giants, contributing four shutout innings to a 3-0 home win.
His last four outings also have followed an opener, taking over three times in the second inning and once in the third. The Nationals have lost all four games.
Mikolas will be facing the Giants for the 12th time in his career, having gone 5-1 with a 2.91 ERA over six starts and five relief efforts.
–Field Level Media
