From Bryan Hoch:
he Yankees had a chance to rediscover Toronto during Thursday’s off-day, pleasantly exploring a city that provided little joy last season. Their return to Rogers Centre offered a reminder of why packing passports has become such a chore.
Ryan Weathers was thumped for six runs en route to a fifth-inning hook, and Trent Grisham exited early due to injury as the Yankees fell to the Blue Jays, 8-5, on Friday evening, snapping their four-game winning streak.
“I want to win; I’m a competitor,” Weathers said. “I’m sick of putting us in a hole right now, the last couple of outings. It’s not a good feeling. You want to win ballgames as much as you can. I’ve just got to get back to executing pitches better.”
I think it’s silly to pin this on the Rogers Centre when Weathers has sucked against MULTIPLE teams lately. He’s inching up there on his career high for innings pitched, and I think he’s just hitting a wall. Look at the dude. He’s obviously not some perfect physical specimen out there.
Luckily, they’re not THAT far away from Max Fried returning. I think once they have an exact date on Fried’s return, they might want to consider moving Weathers to the bullpen at that point, and have him ready as a short man by the time Fried is back (and then just have one of the long men take Weathers’ rotation spot when Fried is, like, two weeks away).
Weathers being able to concentrate on an inning or two will likely lead to MUCH stronger performances from him, like ALL starters who go to the bullpen. I think he’ll still be a valuable reliever this season, he just looks to be tiring as a starter. Bad performances are becoming routine for him lately. And it’s on different things. Last time he got beat on his fastball a lot. This game was his offspeed stuff.
The STUFF is still there, but he is missing his spots. If he only had to concentrate on an inning or two, I bet all of that stuff would play up much better. Just look at how Louis Varland is now a stud closer, and he was a much WORSE starter than Weathers.
Weathers can see if he build on this next season, stamina-wise.
Again, though, if your problem is your #5 starter who is going to be replaced by an All-Star pitcher in a month, then you’re doing pretty well, starting pitching-wise. Just need to white knuckle through a few more Weathers starts (or, in the alternative, “Just need to weather a few more Weathers starts”).
Otherwise, this game was fine. It was GREAT to see the Yankees knock Yesavage around, and it EASILY could have been worse for the rookie if the Yankees hadn’t choked so much. So I liked seeing all that.
What I DIDN’T like seeing was Grisham pull his hamstring. It sounds like he MIGHT only miss a couple of games, and avoid the IL, but if that’s the case, you still NEED to call up Dominguez and have him play the outfield with Jones and Belli until Grisham returns. What you absolutely should NOT do is have Schuemann or Caballero fill in in right field while waiting for Grisham to feel better. You can’t be giving away at-bats against Toronto!
Featured image is the first of Weathers’ home runs allowed. The long ball is becoming a major problem for him. That’s something else that would presumably be cut down on if he could concentrate on a single inning or two.
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Weathers has been unhittable at times this season, and he’s gotten no run support. I wouldn’t go crazy over this.
He was also 0-2 or 1-2 on so many batters – then he couldn’t put them away , or suddenly didn’t think he could and walked them.
Probably because he’s not used to giving up homers – wasn’t that never his problem before this season?
It seems like a thing that could be figured out.
I’m not worried about him long term. I think he could be a good starter next year, but for this season, when Fried returns, Weathers is 100% headed to the bullpen to throw 98 to every batter, ya know?
Sound good to me!
I should have noted that the Rays losing made this loss easier to handle, as well.
Grisham to IL, Martian up. Last 28 days Trent was 341/913; last 7 429/1050. Great timing.
So fucking annoying. Volpe’s witch-like ability for someone to always get hit when it helps him continues!
Martian in RF batting second.
https://x.com/yankees/status/2065825342841831613?s=61
Codify Baseball: Jacob Misiorowski has a 0.17 ERA in his past eight starts. Please understand that no pitcher in MLB history has had a lower ERA over any span of 8 starts than Jacob Misiorowski.
This will be the Sosa, McGwire, Bonds era of pitchers except minus the PEDs-maybe.
Ohtani 1.07, Mason Miller 0.94, Mis 1.34, Sanchez 1.54, Cam 1.87, Varland 0.5, Chapman 0.46.