Offense is not offensive, but pitching sadly is

Logan Webb (62) wipes his head after giving up an rbi double to Sung-Mun Song (24) in the fourth inning as the San Francisco Giants played the San Diego Padres at Oracle Park San Francisco on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (Photo by Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images) The San Francisco Giants’ offense came to life on Tuesday, and it is critical that you understand that “come to life” is a relative term. Life, in living and breathing human being terms, may be binary, but in baseball parlance it is not.

For the Giants, coming to life means they scored exactly five runs, which marked just the 11th time they’ve done that through 36 games this year. It might not be a sign of life for the eight MLB teams that are averaging at least five runs per game. But the issue with an offense that comes to life is that you never know whether its relationship with the other half of the game will be symbiotic or parasitic.

Can life on offense beget life on the mound? Or must life on offense funnel life from a pitcher in order to stay alive? On Tuesday, it was emphatically the latter.

San Francisco’s life in the batter’s box, relative as it may be, came at the direct expense of their life throwing pitches. And the result was a 10-5 loss at the hands of the San Diego Padres. That’s disappointing enough as is, but disappointment gives way to concern when you get to the critical detail: Logan Webb was on the mound.