By Brian Murphy
Don’t press send.
Chisel those three words in the lore of how to live. Three-word mantras to build a life around can go far, like “Keep On Truckin’” on a 1970s gas station t-shirt; or “Alright, alright, alright” from the mouth of Matthew McConaughey.
Don’t press send.
Former NFL coach Herm Edwards famously said these words in a symposium advising athletes entering the NFL, about how to use social media. Brevity is the soul of wit, and of how to avoid public social media meltdowns, as I wish I could have said to Giants ace Logan Webb Wednesday night.
Webby! Dude!
We know you. We love you. You are a stalwart.
Just don’t press send.
By now, you probably know the deal. KNBR digital content kid Jack Loder posted a video questioning Webb’s ace label and the team’s veteran leadership after the Giants were nearly no-hit by Toronto’s Dylan Cease. The Giants fell to 38-54.
Entirely reasonable stuff. The veterans — mostly Willy Adames, Rafael Devers and Matt Chapman — and almost all of the bullpen have underperformed on the field and failed to inspire off the field. Webb is a part of the veteran core, too. It’s all fair game when a team with playoff aspirations is 16 games under .500, and there but for the grace of God and the Colorado Rockies would be the worst team in the league.
You can argue with Loder’s criticism of Webb — and I did, in the KNBR studios on Thursday morning with the kid, Loder. He said Webb’s performance vs the league’s best was wanting; I pointed out Webb’s absurdly reliable production, leading all of baseball in innings pitched in 2023 and 2025, and all of the National League in 2024. That’s not to mention his 2nd, 6th and 4th place finishes in the last three NL Cy Young races — or his epic performances the last time the Giants had an October stage: two starts against the Dodgers in the 2021 NLDS, 14.2 innings, one earned run, one walk, 17 strikeouts. Bro.
But that’s the point: it’s all baseball arguments, all good stuff to beef about, compare stats, have a ball debate.
When Webb fired back at Loder “what’s really sad is that they let people like you in the locker room”, I had to sigh and cringe. It’s not just the act of clapping back. Heck, we all either want to clap back or do clap back in life. You lean on a horn at an intersection. You give someone half of the peace sign in traffic. I get it.
But when the Giants are scuffling, and the leadership of veterans is a legitimate question, and fans are sour and franchise icon Buster Posey is running the boat aground, Webb firing back smacked of a thin-skinned weakness. Because he didn’t just fire back at Loder — he kept it going all night at several other tweeters, and it was all a bad look, right up to and including him deleting his Twitter account.
Now, some might say Webb has unintentionally granted himself freedom — from scrolling, from comments, from soul-sucking negativity. But some might also say that Webb came out on the short end of this brouhaha; letting haters affect him, showing fractures in his self-belief and ability to rise above. You’d think and hope Webb would be more concerned with helping his teammates win the next game then worrying about what a paid commenter offers. Michelle Obama gave us all the road map: When they go low, we’re supposed to go high.
Now, again: I get Webb’s desire to say “Eff Everyone!” and fire back. And athletes throughout history have gone ham on the media, as I was just saying to my good friend Bobby (‘I WILL SHOW YOU THE BRONX’) Bonilla. And I have clapped back at KNBR haters, too. Doesn’t mean I feel good about it, or that it is an example of me at my best.
Ted Lasso told us that “I hope that either all of us, or none of us, are judged by the actions of our weakest moments” — and I’m not judging Webb on a grand scale, at all. In fact, *outside of the World Series era guys like Bumgarner, Lincecum and Cain*, Webb is in my all-time Giants starting five of my lifetime. Let’s go Jason Schmidt, Webb, Kirk Rueter, John Montefusco and Mike Krukow. With apologies to Dave Dravecky, Livan Hernandez, Jim Barr, Vida Blue and Shawn Estes.
It’s just that in a season where Rafael Devers wagged a finger at a manager and where Willy Adames forgot how many outs there were, we didn’t need “Loder-Gate” to add to the bad vibes. And while I have you, I have zero beef with Loder — Tam High kid, after all. Keep doing your thing and keeping the criticism fair and honest, kid.
As for the rest of us: Don’t. Press. Send.
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