Sean Manaea good, Logan Webb better as Giants beat Padres for second straight day

To take advantage of its own excellent starting pitching, a team most often has to score at least a couple runs.

The Giants did so Wednesday afternoon. The Padres did not, and they lost 2-1 at Oracle Park in the final game of their season-opening road trip. (Box score.)

The Padres have arguably had only one solid offensive game this season. They relied on superb pitching and found a way to manufacture enough runs to win four straight in the middle of the trip, but their .348 slugging percentage ranks 22nd in the major leagues and just three teams have hit fewer home runs than the Padres’ total of four.

“We haven’t hit our stride offensively yet,” manager Bob Melvin said. “But (Logan) Webb was really good today. ... Yeah, he’s pretty good pitcher.”

The Padres return to San Diego for the first time since the start of spring training with a 4-3 record, after losing the final two games here, to play their home opener against the Braves at 5:10 p.m. Thursday.

“We’d like to try to sneak one more out,” Melvin said. “But over .500 on the road, we finally get to go home and play in front of our crowd. So we’re looking forward to that.”

While their own starter, left-hander Sean Manaea, allowed just two runs in six innings, the Padres struggled to make much legitimate contact against Giants starter Webb for the eight innings he deftly worked.

Webb was 11-3 with a 3.03 ERA in 2021 and earned the Giants’ opening-day start this season. But he had never in 46 career starts worked more than 7 1/3 innings. He threw 96 pitches, allowed four hits and struck out seven Wednesday.

“Just didn’t make any mistakes today,” Padres designated hitter Luke Voit said. “... He got us to chase and just got a lot of outs early in counts.”

Just 11 of the Padres’ 28 plate appearances against Webb lasted more than three pitches, a product of Webb throwing strikes and the Padres chasing his sinker and diving change-up. They entered the game swinging at 28.9 percent of pitches they saw outside the zone and did so 40 percent of the time against Webb.

Half of the Padres’ hits off Webb — Manny Machado’s double and Jake Cronenworth’s triple — came in succession in the first inning. That gave the Padres’ their first opening-inning run of the season.

“A lot of times with a good starter, they’re a little more vulnerable in the first inning and before they get settled in that’s when we (have) a little better success,” Melvin said. “But once he got going, the mix between his changeup and his sinker is really good. And once he gets into a groove, you see a lot of ground balls like you saw.”

One of the 10 groundball outs Webb got was the second out of the first inning.

With Cronenworth on third and running on contact, Voit grounded a ball directly at Giants third baseman Luke Williams, who threw home to easily get Cronenworth.

“I just feel like I’m not doing my job right now,” said Voit, who had reached base safely in every game before Wednesday but does not have any extra-base hits. “I’m hitting a lot of ground balls.”

Webb went on to retire 12 straight before Wil Myers’ single with one out in the fifth. Seven more outs followed before Jurickson Profar’s double with two out in the seventh. Myers’ strikeout ended that threat, and Webb got through his final inning in 10 pitches.

Manaea followed up seven hitless innings in his Padres debut Friday in Arizona by allowing four hits Wednesday.

“I don’t think it was as good as last time, but overall I felt pretty good,” Manaea said. “Didn’t have my best stuff, but I was able to go six. From that perspective, it was good.”

A leadoff walk, one-out single and Williams’ two-out double in the second inning staked the Giants to the 2-1 lead that stood for the duration. Darin Ruf’s one-out double in the third gave the Giants their only baserunner until Ruf led off the sixth with a walk.

“Those pitcher battles are fun,” Manaea said. “Logan did an unbelievable job.”

The Padres managed a final threat in the ninth against Camilo Doval. Cronenworth hit a one-out single and Eric Hosmer drew a two-out walk before Doval hit Profar. But Matt Beaty, pinch-hitting for Myers, struck out to end the game.

“Just came up one at-bat short,” Melvin said.

The entire 8½-inning game lasted two hours, 11 minutes. That was more than 30 minutes faster than any of the Padres’ previous six games. They played just two that went quicker last season, and one of those was six innings and the other seven.

The lack of scoring expedited the game. So did Webb throwing just 24 balls among his 96 pitches.

“He has very good stuff,” Cronenworth said. “He throws a ton of strikes. ... He’s got good movement on all his pitches. We just have to find some way to scrape together some more runs.”