6-4-2 — an Angels/Dodgers double play blog

Once upon a time, Jeff Weaver was one of the toasts of baseball's amateur class. Drafted by the White Sox in the second round (62nd overall) in 1997, he felt his record at Fresno State deserved better than both the position and the $750,000 signing bonus the Sox offered him. A two-time All-American, he would go on to become a three-timer before the Tigers drafted him the very next year, this time 14th overall in the first round for a $1 million bonus. He struck out twelve in twelve innings at rookie-A Jamestown when he got his first promotion to high-A West Michigan; by the time the Tigers yanked him up to the big club, he had only pitched thirty-one innings in the minors. That was okay, Tigers' then-GM Randy Smith said; he had "the makeup and the stuff to be a future No. 1 pitcher." One thing was for sure: he made it to the Show faster than any rookie in Tiger history.

It went pretty well at first. Through June 22, he had only one game with more than three earned runs, and ten quality starts. Tiger Hall-of-Famer Al Kaline likened the 22-year-old to another Tiger Hall-of-Famer with a three-quarters delivery, Jim Bunning. "I thought in spring training that he had a chance to be special," Manager Larry Parrish said after his first game in the majors, a 7-1 romp over the Twins that saw him give up only two base runners over five innings. "I saw nothing in this game that changes my mind."

Parrish would get plenty to change his mind with after Weaver's June 27 start. Following five no-decisions he earned thanks to a weak bullpen and/or inadequate offensive support, he imploded against the Twins, the team he made his major league debut against. By then the club with the worst record in the American League, Minnesota sent 17 batters to the plate in an inning and two-thirds, pasting Weaver in his first real humiliation of the season. It wasn't the last: he would only post two more quality starts for the rest of the season, but five of his 16 remaining starts he would get chased before completing the fifth.

While it wasn't a compelling campaign, it wasn't horrible, either, and Weaver followed it up with a 2000 season that saw him trim his walk and home run rates by roughly a third, while pitching 200 innings. Third on the staff by ERA (behind a rehabilitating Hideo Nomo and knuckleballer Steve Sparks), he functioned as an ace for the team that year, and again in 2001. In 2002, he overcame a rocky start to work his ERA down to 3.18 by July 29 — at which point, he was traded to the Yankees in a three-way deal with Oakland. Weaver then gave up six earned runs in seven innings against Toronto in his first game — which the powerful Yankees offense magically turned into a win. Another big and symbolic implosion came, typically enough, on a July 21 home game against the Red Sox in which he gave up eight earned runs — and yet again, the Yankees offense got him off the hook for a loss. His Yankees season ERA skyrocketed to 8.10, and shortly after, Joe Torre pulled him in and out of the bullpen for the rest of the season.

It was in that postseason bullpen where he had his most infamous pinstriped moments, pitching ineffectively against the Angels in 2002, and again in 2003, where he gave up a walkoff home run to Alex Gonzalez, eventually precipitating a trade to the Dodgers. Following a pair of mediocre years with the Dodgers, his arbitration eventually led to an irreconcilable dispute; he signed with the Angels this last offseason.

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And here we are. Weaver's blowups, now legendary thanks to the notorious New York press and his unfortunate predilection for having them happen in the postseason, have, of necessity, left him a marked man. This was supposed to be a year of retrenchment for Weaver, an opportunity to show what he could do when, as the Angels expect, he leaves the team for greener free agency pastures. In the interim, he gets to pitch at home, and possibly, with his younger brother Jered.

By his own sometimes brutal history, the four home runs Jeff Weaver gave up today wasn't a personal record; that belongs to the five hit in the aforesaid July 21, 2002 Red Sox game, and to his five-homer day at Coors Field, September 2 just last year. No doubt that was a game Dodgers executives had fresh in their minds when considering just how valuable the Manhattan Beach resident's services truly were.

Weaver surrendered homers to Raul Ibañez (who hit 20 last year), Jose Lopez (2), Carl Everett (23), and Yuniesky Betancourt (1). Two of those homers were understandable; two weren't. Weaver, according to Scioscia after the game, was having "a lot of trouble hitting spots and really never got into any kind of effective groove that would allow him to get out of trouble." But, at least he didn't resort to yelling into his glove or standing slump-shouldered on the mound, waiting for the next hitter to pound his three-quarters fastball into the right field pavilion.

So much for history. It seems to me that there are two things to take from the Jeff Weaver Experience, insofar as it applies to the Angels:

1. Weaver will probably correct himself. He has the motivation, and moreover, the history of straightening himself out in Los Angeles following his awful time in the Bronx. The key is finding a place for him where he can be effective. If today's MLB.com gameday recap is any indication, he has one start left in which to rehabilitate himself — which will come against his old team, the Dodgers, on Friday.
2. Like it or not, Jered Weaver is probably going to be poisoned by his brother's record. Both were college stars taken as high draft picks. Both have similar deliveries. Both have similar problems getting lefties out. With a Jered Weaver callup necessitating a roster crunch (absent of an injured player to replace), the itch to leave him in AAA for more starts becomes rather irresistible. Jeff serves as a reminder that college stars don't translate cleanly into the major leagues, and perhaps, as a warning of what Jered might become.

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Weaver and Weaver aside, the game had its incidental charms, at least, until the third, the last inning in which the Angels could truly be said to be in it. The top of the second featured an exciting shovel toss from Orlando Cabrera to a barehanded Adam Kennedy for a just-in-time double play on Kenji Johjima's grounder just behind second. Tommy Murphy had a good at bat in the top of the fourth, working a 3-2 count from Meche; any Angel offensive player getting there deserves praise. Murphy also hit a screaming liner in the gap in the sixth that found its way into Jeremy Reed's glove, an excellent piece of fielding.

Dallas McPherson, playing at first, made two consecutive solid defensive plays in the top of the eighth when he cleanly fielded Adrian Beltre's pop fly coming directly out of the sun, and then nabbed Johjima's hot smash grounder and took it unassisted to the bag. He also singled, grounded out, and struck out, but the latter only once. He's making contact, which we may take as a sign of limited progress.

Mike Napoli went 2-3, his first hit a hustle double in which he barely avoided making an out. I still maintain my skepticism about him as an offensive player, but more days like this one and it won't matter.

Recap • ESPN Box