TORONTO — Kevin Gausman was a popular man during batting practice at Rogers Centre on Friday. The Toronto Blue Jays’ right-hander spent over an hour hanging out on the visitors’ side of the field chatting with San Francisco Giants players and staff.
Gausman pitched for the Giants during the 2020 and ’21 seasons and in that short time became an adored presence in the clubhouse. For every five steps he took on Friday, there was another person who ran up to Gausman to shake his hand or offer up a hug.
However, perhaps no former teammate was happier to see Gausman than right-hander Logan Webb.
“He’s one of my favourite guys that I have ever played with,” Webb says. “He’s a big reason why I’m able to do what I do today.”
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Blue Jays take on Giants in return from All-Star break
The Toronto Blue Jays charge into the second half of the season in first place and back home at Rogers Centre. Watch the AL East leaders take on the San Francisco Giants in the second game of their series Saturday starting with Blue Jays Central at 2:30 p.m. ET on Sportsnet.
What Webb does these days is post as one of the most durable, workhorse starting pitchers in the sport. The 28-year-old, who’ll toe the rubber against the Blue Jays on Saturday, leads MLB with 887 innings since the 2021 campaign and his 21.1 fWAR over that span ranks second among pitchers to only Phillies ace Zack Wheeler.
Webb credits a specific conversation with Gausman for unlocking that success and changing everything.
In April 2021, Webb was rocked during a start in Philadelphia and that felt like his breaking point. The former fourth-round pick had largely struggled since debuting in the majors in 2019 and had begun to lose hope.
Webb found himself in a vulnerable post-game chat with Gausman and expressed doubt to his then-teammate that he would amount to anything more than an average big-league pitcher.
“He kind of got mad at me,” recalls Webb. “He was just like, ‘You need to stop saying that. You got really good stuff. You got to just have more fun and enjoy it a little bit more. And I really took that to heart.”
Gausman, 34, remembers the conversation well. He’d grown close with Webb during their time together in San Francisco and noticed the young hurler tended to be way too hard on himself.
“As a young pitcher, you’re trying to put your stamp on your career and who you’re going to be and all those things,” Gausman says. “[The conversation] was like, ‘Hey, remember why we started playing this game. We all started playing this because it was fun. Now we’re at this level where we put so much pressure on ourselves. Every pitch we throw is dissected, every outing is ripped apart. How can we get you to get out of your own way and just be loose out there?’”
Webb says he tried to adopt a serious demeanour when he first broke into the majors because that was how he thought starting pitchers were supposed to act. The notion was reinforced by veteran hurlers he’d come across, yet, to Webb, behaving like them became exhausting.
“Some guys still do things the old-school way,” he says. “When they show up to the field on start days, they have their headphones on, really locked in. Kevin wasn’t like that and he was the first veteran pitcher that I had known who wasn’t super serious the day he threw.
“Don’t get me wrong, you get to a point where you got to lock in,” continued Webb. “But you can have a conversation with him, whereas with some guys, they don’t want to talk.”
As simple as it sounds, the shift in mentality worked wonders for Webb. He trained his mind to focus on finding enjoyment in the little things, such as ripping off a well-placed sinker at the bottom of the zone, for example. It was as if he suddenly became unchained and the results quickly followed.
Five days after his nadir in Philadelphia, the right-hander tossed seven scoreless frames against Miami. Webb continued to build on that momentum and produced an impressive 2.86 ERA over his remaining 22 starts that season.
As the year unfolded, Gausman noticed Webb’s increasing mastery of his trademark sinker. The pitchers were catch partners and it got to the point where Gausman could stand in one spot with his glove tucked in close to his chest and expect Webb’s tosses to arrive in his mitt without moving an inch.
That pitch registered as the second-best sinker in the game in 2024, according to Baseball Savant’s Run Value metric, and this year it’s No. 6 on the leaderboard. Beyond the development of Webb’s nasty stuff, though, Gausman has taken joy in simply observing his former teammate’s demeanour.
“When he’s just himself and free out there, he’s going to be able to do whatever he wants,” says Gausman. “Now, when you watch him pitch, you’re going to see him laugh on the mound. You’re gonna see him look at his teammates and if they did something funny, he’s OK with cracking a smile on the field.
“He wasn’t like that before.”
Gausman makes a point to check the boxscore and watch highlights from Webb’s outings. He could never have guessed that their discussion four years ago would carry such impact, but says the credit goes to Webb for eventually making good on his immense potential.
“He took that conversation and just absolutely ran with it,” says Gausman. “I’m a huge fan of his because I’ve seen him turn into the pitcher that he is, but I also know him as a person. I can’t say enough good things about him and how much I enjoyed playing with him.
“I’m just ecstatic to see what he’s become.”
