Inside Jered Weaver's no-hitter
Jered Weaver had to work a little harder than most to earn his no-hitter for the Angels on Wednesday night. Because of a passed ball on a strikeout that allowed the batter to reach first, Weaver had to get not 27, but 28 outs against the Minnesota Twins to cement his place in history.
Almost just as impressive is the way Weaver achieved the feat. His fastest pitch of the night was a 93-mph fastball to Alexi Casilla in the 1st inning. Only 15 of his 68 fastballs clocked in at 90-mph or higher. Eleven of those came before the fourth inning.
Here's a breakdown of Weaver's no-no:
- He threw 121 pitches: 68 fastballs, 16 sliders, 15 changeups, 14 curveballs, eight cutters.
- His slowest pitch was a 70-mph curveball. He threw two of them, one to Chris Parmelee in the 2nd inning and another to Denard Span in the 9th.
- Of his 28 outs, 17 came on fastballs, four on sliders, three on cutters, three on changeups and one on a curveball.
- Weaver struck out nine batters, three looking. Five of those strikeouts came on fastballs (including all three looking), two came on sliders, one came on a cutter and one came on a curveball.
- Weaver struck out nine, had nine fly-outs, got five ground outs and five pop outs. He didn't allow a flyout until the second out of the 4th inning.
- He walked just one batter, but was in danger of walking others: Weaver went 3-1 on Joe Mauer in the 1st before getting him to ground out on a fastball. He was 3-2 on Josh Willingham in the 2nd before striking him out on a slider. Weaver went 3-2 on Willingham in the 4th before getting him to pop out on a changeup. He was 3-2 on Parmelee before striking him out on a fastball in the 5th. He was 3-2 on Clete Thomas before getting him to fly-out on a fastball in the 6th. Finally, Weaver walked Willingham in the 7th.
- Weaver got four one-pitch outs, including getting Casilla to fly-out to end the game on a fastball.
- The longest at-bat of the game was a 10-pitch battle with Parmelee. After starting Parmelee off with a ball, Weaver got ahead 1-2. But Parmelee kept fouling off pitches (he fouled off five total) in order to get the count 3-2. After fouling off three straight pitches, he struck out on a two-seamer.
