After a rough start to the 2021 season, Jacob Webb is starting to once again become that solid reliever for the Atlanta Braves we thought he could be.
Coming into the 2021 season I thought Jacob Webb had a chance to become a really solid high-leverage reliever for the Atlanta Braves.
In 2019 he was 4-0 with a 1.39 ERA in 32.1 innings with 28 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.11. Last season he pitched 10 scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts but did walk a lot of batters with five.
Finally healthy entering 2021, things got off to a rough start with an 8.22 ERA in April in large part because of 3 home runs given up.
Things were getting better in May before he hit Kevin Pillar in the face. He’d pitch two more games in May and then was sent back down.
In June, July, and August he got brief call-ups and was solid pitching 5 scoreless innings across those months and lowering his season ERA from 5.63 wot 4.29.
In September he started to assert himself more into the bullpen mix and has been brilliant throwing 7 scoreless innings allowing just 2 hits and 2 walks with 5 strikeouts.
He’s also recorded 3 wins in September.
And if you’re keeping track, he hasn’t allowed a run in his last 11 outings.
Primarily a fastball/change-up pitcher, he’s never matched his K/9 numbers from the minors in the big leagues, so I’m not ready to consider him a high-leverage reliever.
His change-up has very good horizontal movement and gets a lot of swings and misses.
Like any fastball/change-up pitcher, when he’s able to locate the fastball — especially throwing it as hard as 94-95 MPH — it really makes the change-up deadly at 10 MPH lower.
I was very impressed in his outing on Tuesday when he came into the game in a tight spot after Touki had just given up a 2-run homer to give the Rockies the lead.
Webb gave up a double and a walk to put two on with no outs. He settled down and got C.J. Cron to roll over on a change-up for a double-play and then got Ryan McMahon to groundout on a change-up as well.
Again, I’m not saying he’s worthy of a 7th or 8th inning spot at this point, but what he’s done over the last month-plus is proven that he’s one of the more reliable arms coming out of a shaky pen in the middle innings.