In the dugout before Sunday’s game, Kim Jones, the beat reporter for the YES network, asked Yankee manager Joe Torre if Jared Weaver made him of think of Weaver’s older brother and former-Yankee, Jeff Weaver. “It’s hard not to,” said Torre. “He’s got the same look, the same willowy body. He looks like a clone [of his brother].” Torre said that he had not seen the young Weaver pitch—except for a few highlights on TV—but admitted, “He seems like the real thing.”
Weaver was the real thing on Sunday afternoon, mixing a nasty curve ball with a strong fastball. The Yankees made him work but Weaver showed resolve and poise. He was not afraid to pitch inside and even when he was behind in the count, he didn’t lose his cool. The only mistake he made in six innings of work was when he dipped-down and tried to sneak a fastball past Craig Wilson in the fifth. He had previously made Wilson look foolish with a breaking pitch away, and the drop-down was the kind of cutesy move that his brother has specialized in. Otherwise, there wasn’t any resemblance to Jeff, other than physically.
Like his brother, Jered is long and lean. But his motion is slightly different. Jered twists his back, with his number facing the batter, in a manner than is reminiscent of Hideo Nomo. He made Alex Rodriguez—who had another less than stellar day in the field—look bad in three at bats. For his part, Chien-Ming Wang was flat for the second-straight outing, giving up six hits and three runs in the first inning alone.
The Angels bullpen was its usual stellar self and they set the Yankees down like lambs until Rodriguez blasted his 25th dinger of the year with two men out in the bottom of the ninth. Jason Giambi followed with a solo shot of his own, just to the right of the 399 ft sign in left center, but that was it as the Angels bounced the Bombers, 5-3 in front of a sellout crowd in the Big House.
Man, that was a heck of a way to sperl a wonderful day in New York, particularly with Boston, Minnie and Chicago all leading their games as the Yankee game ended. The Yanks will likely be just a game ahead of Boston in a few hours (and here I thought, just listening to the noise coming out of Boston this past week, that the Red Sox were dead). But then again, the Yankees are accustomed to hellish games against the Halos. And tomorrow night they get to face L.A.’s ace, John Lackey.
