SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Spring training stats should always be taken with a massive grain of salt. Small sample sizes, indeed, are never a match for the law of large numbers. That said, it’s hard to ignore how well the Giants’ front end trio of Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Justin Verlander has fared down in the desert.
A day removed from Verlander’s five scoreless innings against the Chicago White Sox, Ray allowed one run (none earned) over five frames as the Giants beat the San Diego Padres, 4-3, on Tuesday night at Scottsdale Stadium. Collectively, the trio of Ray, Verlander and Webb has a 2.16 ERA with 56 strikeouts over 50 innings in Cactus League play.
“I feel like we’re all in really good spots,” Ray said. “It’s been fun to watch and watch those guys go about their business every day and bounce some things off of each other. It’s nice to have two other veteran guys that have been around for a while. So, it’s definitely exciting. I feel like if we go out and compete like we know how to — like we’ve been doing all spring — then it’s going to be fun.”
Ray, Verlander and Webb are all at points in their respective careers where results are secondary to refinement. Webb, the Giants’ Opening Day starter, is emphasizing his cutter usage and tweaking his changeup and his mechanics. Verlander is throwing a curveball with additional horizontal movement. As for Ray? He’s continuing to tinker with his changeup, a pitch he added with the help of 2024 AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal.
Ray has not tweaked the grip he learned from Skubal, though he is holding it looser compared to his fastball and slider. The two left-handers talk about once a week, and in the coming days, Ray will have the chance to start against Skubal’s Detroit Tigers in an exhibition at Oracle Park. When Ray sees Skubal in San Francisco, he plans to “give him a big hug and say thank you.”
“He told me that I’m not allowed to throw (the changeup) against them,” said Ray, who has a 1.26 ERA with 19 strikeouts over four Cactus League starts. “I said that every changeup I throw, I’m going to look in their dugout and give them a thumbs up.”
Depending on how things shake out, Ray might have the opportunity to use his changeup against the Tigers in a regular-season game when the Giants travel to Detroit in late May. Last May, by comparison, Ray was still recovering from Tommy John surgery and had yet to appear in a rehab outing. This spring, then, has represented a return to normalcy.
“It definitely feels better to have a normal offseason and normal spring training, building up a normal progression, not having to jump into the middle of a season. That’s great,” Ray said. “I don’t like to say that I’m working on stuff, but going out there and getting that competitive juice flowing again and going out and trying to put up zeros in a competitive at-bat in competitive innings feels good again.”
Added manager Bob Melvin: “Robbie just looks a lot healthier compared this year.”
Ray, 33, is positioned to pitch in his first full season since 2022 and, presumably, return to consistently toeing the slab every five days. The left-hander made 108 starts from 2019-22, tied with Gerrit Cole and José Berríos for the second-most in baseball during that span (Aaron Nola led baseball with 110). In that same span, Ray was one of nine pitchers to toss at least 600 innings. Ray couldn’t definitively say if he can get back to those pre-surgery marks, but his mindset is firmly set in place.
“I’m just going to go until they say I can’t,” Ray said.
Worth noting
- Infielder Casey Schmitt was scratched due to low back tightness. Schmitt is competing with Brett Wisely for the fifth infielder role on the Giants’ Opening Day roster.
- Matt Chapman had his second multi-error game of spring, committing both a fielding and throwing error. Last year, Chapman, who won his fifth Gold Glove Award, only had two multi-error games all season.
- Patrick Bailey reached base four times in four plate appearances, totaling three hits and drawing a walk.