Erik Boland: In the end, it's a sickening turn of events for Yankees' Ryan Weathers
Yankees starting pitcher Ryan Weathers reacts during the seventh inning against the Orioles on Monday in Baltimore. Credit: Getty Images/Patrick Smith
BALTIMORE — It was enough to make Ryan Weathers sick.
Again.
Just in a slightly different way than what caused the lefthander to be scratched from his scheduled start last Thursday.
That came about because Weathers took ill — violently so — after his start May 2 against the Orioles at the Stadium. He was bedridden with a viral infection that generated a 102-degree fever, necessitated an IV, and slimmed his frame by nine pounds.
Monday, the hard-throwing lefthander was, for six innings, sickening on the mound.
He took a no-hitter, nine strikeouts and a 2-0 lead into the seventh inning at Camden Yards against the Orioles.
The 26-year-old was on top of his game with, as Aaron Boone said, “everything” — his four-seam, sinker and changeup especially unhittable.
It turned, as it so often can, fast.
Adley Rutschman led off the seventh with a sharp single to right. A fielder’s choice and a walk later, Boone, who planned to “go a little shorter” with Weathers on this night because of what he was coming off of physically, pulled him at 101 pitches (that tied a career high). Lefthander Brent Headrick, mostly excellent this season, hung a slider to Coby Mayo and the DH, hitting .158 coming into the night and 3-for-his-last-32, rocked it to left for his fourth homer that suddenly put the Yankees behind 3-2.
It ended that way for a fourth straight loss, the offense, keeping with the theme of the night, sickly in that stretch.
After going a combined 16-for-95 (.168) with 39 strikeouts in their three-game sweep at the hands of the Brewers over the weekend in Milwaukee, the Yankees went 5-for-31 (.161) with nine strikeouts Monday. They were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position and left five on base.
“We’ve got to get some guys unlocked,” Boone said. “We’ve got a handful of guys that are scuffling. We’ve got to get a little more competitive up and down the lineup.”
That is particularly true of Jazz Chisholm Jr., who went 0-for-4 to drop his batting average to .201 and OPS to .603, and Austin Wells, who has been worse. The catcher, who continues to prove all the talent evaluators wrong who said during his development in the minors that he wouldn’t be able to catch at this level, still isn’t consistently doing the one thing pretty much all of those evaluators agreed he would be able to do if he ever did reach the majors: Hit.
Wells went 0-for-3 on Monday, dropping his batting average to .177 and his OPS to .591.
The only player with multiple hits Monday was Ben Rice, who went 2-for-4, including his 13th homer, a two-run shot in the third that gave Weathers the 2-0 lead he took into the seventh.
“I think opposing pitching has done a good job making the pitches they need to in certain situations,” Rice said of the offense during this mini-slump.
And, despite some of the predictable overreaction, it is, at this point a mini-slump as the Yankees still stand at 26-16, the second-best record in the American League (the Rays, who at the moment seem incapable of losing, beat the Blue Jays Monday to move to 27-13).
“I think we just have to continue to do a good job of having quality at-bats, having quality at-bats with men on, and making their guys work,” Rice said.
The offense’s inability to do that cost Weathers, who deserved far better than a tough-luck no-decision.
The pitcher somewhat comically — but with a straight face — said he had “zero idea” he had a no-hitter and didn’t realize he did until “after I got taken out of the game.”
That brought to mind the comment Hall of Famer CC Sabathia said more than once during his career when it came to the topic.
“Any pitcher who tells you they don’t know is lying,” Sabathia would say with a smile.
Regardless of all that, the Yankees so far have gotten as good as they could have hoped for out of Weathers, an offseason trade acquisition meant to bolster their pitching staff. The Yankees brought Weathers in from the Marlins to first serve as rotation depth with Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole set to start the season on the IL, and then shift his powerful arm, capable of producing fastballs that hit 100 mph on the radar gun, to the bullpen when the rotation got whole.
Because of the performance of Will Warren — Tuesday’s starter who comes in 4-1 with a 3.46 ERA — Weathers remains likely to be bullpen-bound once Cole is back.
But Weathers, who on Monday lowered his ERA a tick from 3.03 to 3.00, at the very least is doing his part to make that call not as easy as it once seemed.
Erik Boland started in Newsday's sports department in 2002. He covered high school and college sports, then shifted to the Jets beat. He has covered the Yankees since 2009.
