Of the Giants’ young pitchers, 23-year-olds Hayden Birdsong and Kyle Harrison have generated headlines lately by turning strong relief outings into burgeoning starting opportunities.
Meanwhile, 26-year-old Landen Roupp — who beat out both promising pitchers for San Francisco’s final Opening Day rotation spot — quietly has found a groove in his first full MLB season.
Roupp accelerated that positive momentum on Friday night, throwing six-plus scoreless innings to help the Giants grab a 4-0 shutout win over the Washington Nationals to begin a nine-game road trip.
With this outing in the nation’s capital, the 2021 12th-round pick improved his ERA to 1.64 in 22 innings during May — a strong response to an up-and-down first month of the season.
After the win, third baseman Matt Chapman detailed what he’s seen from Roupp as of late.
“I think he’s gaining more experience every time he goes out there. He’s getting more confident,” Chapman told NBC Sports Bay Area’s Laura Britt and Ron Wotus on “Giants Postgame Live.” “He’s going to be somebody that we lean on. I think having a guy like [Logan] Webb at the top of our rotation for him to pick his brain and watch how he throws, because they both throw sinkers and have some similarities, so I think it’s been really big for him.
“He just seems to be getting better every time.”
“He seems to be getting better every time.”
Matt Chapman likes what he’s seen from Landen Roupp after another strong outing 👏 pic.twitter.com/aYhxOXUVN7
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 24, 2025
What’s even more impressive is Roupp’s success despite his curveball — his signature pitch — being relatively ineffective Friday. Roupp historically throws his curveball over 40 percent of the time, but he only tossed it for 17 of his 76 pitches (22 percent) against a Nationals lineup full of left-handed hitters, per Baseball Savant.
“This game gives me more confidence than the last one, just because of that reason,” Roupp told reporters postgame. “In the past, I haven’t been that good to lefties, just because I’ve never had four pitches. So throwing all of my pitches tonight really helped.”
That growing ability to rely consistently on other pitches has been a major factor behind Roupp’s recent surge as a whole. In particular, he credited his growth with his two-seam sinking fastball.
“Getting it in the zone — when my two-seam is in the zone, it makes my other stuff better,” Roupp explained. Uncoincidentally, his sinkers were in the zone 70 percent of the time on Friday night.
Likewise, Giants manager Bob Melvin emphasized Roupp’s command as a primary reason for his strong month on the mound.
“Just more efficient throwing strikes and after getting ahead, doesn’t pick — he’s still trying to pound the zone,” Melvin detailed. “That’s why he came out of that game with 76 pitches. He was so efficient that it looked like new territory maybe for him in the seventh inning like that, but with the pitch count and the way he was pitching, it was easy to let him go back out there.”
Melvin took the ball from Roupp after he surrendered a double and a walk to start the seventh inning during a 2-0 game at the time. But Randy Rodriguez, another second-year righty having a stellar May, induced a strikeout and a double play to escape the jam and help cement Roupp’s third win of the season.
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