3 SF Giants starting pitchers excelling in key pitching category

The SF Giants have been among the best teams in baseball at preventing home runs, as they are second with a 0.80 HR/9 ratio. Logan Webb, Landen Roupp, and Robbie Ray lead the way in that category for the club.

3 SF Giants starting pitchers excelling in key pitching category

Pitching in Oracle Park certainly helps in preventing home runs. It is one of the more pitcher-friendly ballparks in baseball. That said, the Giants pitching staff also excels at keeping the ball on the ground.

It is very tough to hit a home run on a ground ball. It is not impossible, as Heliot Ramos hit a "home run" on a ball that traveled two feet earlier this season.

Not surprisingly, Logan Webb has been among the best pitchers at preventing home runs for years. He excels at inducing ground-ball contact, but he has seen a spike in his strikeout rate, too. There just are not many chances to get the ball in the air against the veteran hurler, and even fewer to hit a ball far enough for a home-run distance.

Webb is fourth among starters with at least 80 innings pitched with a 0.50 HR/9. Next on the club's list is Landen Roupp, who is 17th among starters with a 0.77 HR/9 rate.

Roupp has done a nice job this year with a 3.43 ERA across 16 starts. His 8.2 K/9 is around league average and his 45.9-percent ground ball rate is above the league mark, but it is not exceptionally high. Part of his success this season has been keeping the ball in the ballpark.

In five June starts, the righty pitcher allowed just one home run in 25.1 frames. That lone long ball came against Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He tends to hit a lot of those.

Lastly, Robbie Ray is 25th among starters with a 0.92 HR/9 ratio. The 2025 season has been a resurgent campaign for the veteran hurler, as he has tallied a 2.75 ERA in 17 starts. He has always recorded high strikeout totals in the past, but home runs have been an issue.

That has not been the case this season. Ray has not been unusually effective at keeping the ball out of the air, but he does excel at preventing hitters from pulling the ball in the air. In terms of batted-ball outcomes, pulling the ball in the air is typically the best for hitters and worst for pitchers.

As a unit, the Giants have hit (79) more home runs than they have allowed (65). That differential is often a key category in baseball. Logan Webb, Landen Roupp, and Robbie Ray have been a big part of that on the pitching side.