San Francisco Giants starting pitcher Logan Webb had an All-Star Game this season that he won’t soon forget, blowing a 3-0 National League lead in the third inning.
It was a surprising performance for a usually rock-solid pitcher, but it turns out there was more to his performance than just a few bad pitches. Two months after the game, Webb appeared on the “Rose Rotation” podcast and admitted that he partied a little too close to the sun the night before the All-Star Game.
Oddly enough, this isn’t the first time someone has admitted that alcohol affected their performance at the 2024 MLB All-Star Game. Country singer Ingrid Andress admitted to getting drunk while singing the national anthem in a much-criticized performance.
As Webb explained it, an open bar at a players’ party after the Home Run Derby was an unmitigated disaster for him:
“It was probably one of the most hungover days I’ve ever had, the day of the All-Star Game. I take responsibility for that. I had a blast. It was a cool experience, I watch the Derby, they had a postgame player party, kind of a party for the players and their families.
“It was in the middle of the Cowboys stadium, Lil Jon was DJing. It’s free alcohol, I was just enjoying it. I wasn’t enjoying it when my wife woke me up at seven in the morning and was like, ‘Hey, I gotta get my makeup done now,’ and I was like, ‘Oh no, this is gonna be a long day.’ And it was a long day.
That long day, Webb did everything he could to shake off his hangover, but eventually he started warming up for his third-inning performance:
“I was nervous, I was excited, I had a lot of Red Bulls, I got Tylenol because I was trying to get the hangover out of me. I think I wasted all my good pitches in the bullpen. It was all I had, and I wasted every one of them.
“Then I go from the bullpen to the mound and I run to the mound and all I’m thinking is ‘Don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up, don’t throw up.’ And it’s a long trot. I think my first pitch almost didn’t make it. [Los Angeles Dodgers catcher] Will Smit.”
Webb quickly got into trouble, singled Marcus Semien and walked Steven Kwan. A ground ball by Gunnar Henderson put two runners in scoring position, and Juan Soto scored them both with an RBI double. David Fry completed the damage with an RBI single to tie the game.
You could call this a warning sign of how seriously the players take the All-Star Game. For players, it’s a mid-season vacation where they have to play a little baseball. Even when there were real stakes, like when home-field advantage was decided in the World Series, players weren’t training hard for an inning or a few at-bats.
That attitude was evident for Webb after he stepped off the mound, when his NL teammates made it clear they didn’t mind him blowing the lead. Some fans, however…
“I walked out of the game and I felt so bad. There was like seven million people watching, I thought, ‘This team is going to hate me.’ And I walked into the dugout and I said, ‘My bad, guys, my bad, guys.’ And every superstar you can think of that was on the national team was like, ‘Dude, who cares?’ Everybody was like, ‘Who cares, who f***ing cares, who gives a f***, who cares?’ That’s all I heard as I walked down and I was like, ‘OK, that makes me feel better about myself. That’s OK.’
I know some fans were mad at me because a certain person didn’t get the All-Star Game MVP when he would have if we had won the game. You know who I’m talking about. It’s okay, I’m fine with it.
That one person would be Shohei Ohtani, who hit a three-run homer in the top of the third inning to give the NL the lead. Webb isn’t wrong in his assessment that Ohtani likely would have won the MVP award if the Giants pitcher had held it together, but his disdain for that consequence is hardly surprising given San Francisco’s stance on the Dodgers.