Tuesday, June 13, 2006 |
W Is For Weaver: Angels 4, Royals 1
Of course, the big difference between Jeff and Jered was that in this case, Jered settled down and made the next out — gettting Shane Costa to ground out to second — without further damage. Often, Jeff will have a big inning and let things get really out of hand, as he did earlier in the season. If indeed the Angels feel compelled to send down Little Weaver, they'll do so to the arrayed catcalls of their fans, who rightfully feel deprived of a starter who's gone 4-0. Weaver admittedly didn't earn that record against the better teams of the league, the exception being Cleveland. The Tribe may be in third place at present in the AL Central, but silencing their deadly offense (third best in the AL) has to count for something; surely, he's earned some respect, at least.
Dallas McPherson again had a good night at the plate, walking twice and scoring a run in an unprecedented display of plate discipline: it was his first multi-walk game of the year. Contrast this with the 5-6-7 hitters, all of whom struck out twice; Erstad at least got an RBI groundout, but you can see if he keeps having nights like this one, he's liable to lose playing time in center to Figgins.
Update: Sanchez in the comments below makes a very good point: brother Jeff was brilliant through June 22, 1999, after which he simply collapsed. Here's Kristina Kahrl on May 12, 1999:
Sure, everyone's excited about Jeff Weaver, and for good reason. The right-hander has shown outstanding command of very good stuff, he doesn't get rattled and he's surviving pretty well despite dubious offensive and defensive support. But perhaps the happiest thing about his first month in in the majors has been Larry Parrish's patience with him.Kahrl also tagged Weaver as her choice for Rookie of the Year on July 15, 1999, and Rany Jazayerli shared some of that enthusiasm:Parrish has let Weaver toss 85, 88, 88, 90 and 96 pitches in his first five starts. Yes, it's a generally upward trend, but that's still remarkable. First off, it shows that Weaver's been very economical with his pitches. Secondly, the quality and the economy haven't moved Parrish to leave Weaver on the mound for more than seven innings in a game. If the Tigers are patient, and if they don't put unwarranted pressure on themselves to contend, Weaver should be in good shape for his second pass through the league.
The guy they call ROY here in Detroit, Jeff Weaver, is giving every indication he's going to be one of the premier starters of the next 15 years. If you've never seen him pitch, you're missing something.Well, that was before the kablooie. Weaver was even handled well in his starts for Detroit, with the club closely monitoring his pitch counts. Oh, so you say the difference is that Jeff blows up easily and Jered doesn't? That wasn't the word on May 9, 2000, when Joel Veeneman declared Jeff "he of the noted even temperament". By May 21, Kristina Kahrl had lost the buzz over Weaver, declaring the Tigers' rotation to consist of "nobody ... you wouldn't mind having, as long as you don't have to pitch more than two or three of them behind a couple of really good starters."
I could go on, but I shouldn't have to. Let's see how the lad's doing after he's had an entire season for the league to see him a couple times.
: 6/13/2006 11:21:00 PM
But four recent comments anticipating Jered's Jeffish decline into mediocrity does border on the obsessive.
For your faithful readers, who join their free leisure to your free industry, could you extend your generosity to varying it up a little?
You've laid the foundation plenty thick for "I told you so". Can we not enjoy what we have for a bit?
: 6/14/2006 12:29:00 AMAnd besides, since when are brothers identical? I don't recall anyone claiming Jeremy Giambi would be a star just because his brother was.
(FTR Santana 6 wins, Escobar 5 wins, Lackey 4 wins, Other Weaver 3 wins -- how can Jered possibly help?)
Send him down!
: 6/14/2006 01:29:00 AM : 6/14/2006 01:53:00 AMRev -- thank you for that clarification.
But I think herein lies the problem:
I just don't think he'll be able to keep up this level of production for more than half a year.
Wow, really going out on a limb. I don't think anyone expects Jered to win every start with an ERA under 2 the rest of the way. Can we agree that if he won 10-12 games with an ERA around 3.50, on the whole, that's a pretty successful rookie year? I agree that we shouldn't let the hot start blow our expectations through the stratosphere, but barring injury, he's got 18-20 starts left (19 for the sake of argument). If he wins eight of those, gets four NDs, and loses the rest, that's 12-7. If he goes the rest of the way with an ERA around 4.00, he'll finish around 3.50.
Personally, I'll take 12-7 with a 3.50 ERA from a rookie who's been a professional for barely a year. Is that the same level of production he's showed so far? Not even close. But the point is, he doesn't have to be Pedro Martinez 1998 to be very successful.
As for comparisons to his brother, with the obvious caveat that it's still extremely early, other than 2003, Jeff has been better than league average virtually ever season (just missed it last year). Jered was more highly touted coming out of school, was more successful in a better baseball conference, and apparently has a much more advance change-up than Jeff did. They aren't clones.
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