After a couple of so-so starts to open his New York Yankees’ career, left-hander Ryan Weathers had his best outing of the young season on Thursday against the Athletics. He completed eight innings, surrendering a single run on seven hits and punching out seven. He didn’t walk anyone, which is particularly encouraging since he entered the game having given away five bases on balls in eight frames.
Now, Weathers’ season ERA stands at a strong 2.81 in 16 innings of work, with five walks and 18 strikeouts.
That’ll do.
The Yankees’ offense is not at its finest, but the starting pitching sure is amazing. Max Fried, Cam Schlittler, Will Warren, and Weathers have been excellent on the whole, and we haven’t even seen Luis Gil, Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodón, Clarke Schmidt yet, not to mention top prospects Elmer Rodríguez and Carlos Lagrange, who continue to develop on the farm.
Back to Weathers: we saw him dominate on Thursday despite diminished velocity, at least compared to his previous two games and what he showed in the spring. His four-seamer averaged 95.1 mph, down from 96.6 mph on the season to this point, and touched 97.4 mph. The pitch has flirted with the triple digits at various points this year. Is the decrease something to worry about?
Well, judging by the results and the lack of any post-game comments about his health or any potential issues, it appears to be the pitcher dialing back in an effort to throw more strikes (it also sure was chilly at the stadium on Thursday). And it worked! He peppered the zone with 73 strikes out of his 101 pitches.
According to what he said after the game, Weathers was more relaxed on the mound, and it clearly had a positive effect on the outcome: “Now I know what that feeling is of just being calm on the mound – hopefully I can keep throwing strikes.”
If that was the key, keep the strikes coming! Weathers’ stuff is good enough to trust it to play in the zone. On Thursday, it definitely did, against an Athletics lineup with a number of formidable bats. Weathers earned 12 whiffs, four each with the four-seamer and sweeper, three with the changeup, and one with the sinker. He did allow some hard contact, but never seemed to be overly fazed by the occasion, except for the Max Muncy triple and the subsequent RBI single by Tyler Soderstrom in the seventh.
If we are being fair, that triple he gave up wasn’t a bad pitch location-wise, so credit goes to the batter:
The whiffs were nice to see, but that wasn’t all: Weathers got a healthy amount of called strikes, especially with his sinker (10) and sweeper (eight). He had 19 in total. Additionally, he had first-pitch strikes against 20 of the 30 batters he faced for a solid 67 percent.
Weathers experienced diminished velocity during his outing, toward the late innings. It was likely due to fatigue, as after touching 96.4 mph in the second frame and 97.4 mph in the fourth, he was down to 93.3 mph in the sixth and 93.8 mph in the seventh. By the eighth, he stopped throwing the pitch altogether, dealing with that frame with sweepers and changeups.
After throwing his four-seamer 42.4 percent of the time leading up to Thursday’s start, more than any other offering, Weathers prioritized his sinker (30 percent), sweeper (27 percent), and changeup (25 percent) against the Athletics, with the heater a distant fourth at 18 percent. He earned a lot of strikes with the mix, but it remains to be seen if it will be a permanent shift away from the four-seamer or if it was matchup-based. He even moved away from the fastball as the outing went on, using it 35 percent of the time the first time through the lineup, 16 percent the second time, and eight percent the third time, with the number dropping to zero the fourth time through.
Despite the loss, Weathers did everything in his power to give his team a W. It didn’t happen because the offense didn’t show up to the ballpark, but he pitched a very solid game. He said it himself: throwing strikes appears to be the most important thing for him, and when he trusts his stuff, he will most likely succeed even if he is not hitting 99 mph on the radar gun.
