Weaver rides changeup to best start of 2023

CINCINNATI — Armed with a virtually unhittable changeup, Luke Weaver turned in his greatest begin of the season, 6 1/3 scoreless innings full with six strikeouts, a stroll and three hits. It continued a development of continued enchancment for the 29-year-old, who set a brand new season excessive in innings pitched and season low in hits allowed in the Reds’ 2-1 loss to the Cardinals on Thursday to separate the sequence at Great American Ball Park.

Weaver began his afternoon sturdy, permitting solely a stroll within the first inning and placing out Cardinals first baseman Alec Burleson on 4 pitches to open the second. Juan Yepez adopted with a double on an 0-1 changeup, the one hit off Weaver’s changeup the Cardinals would get. It was a change from his earlier begin towards the Yankees, by which he allowed three hits, together with a house run, off the pitch.

“Yepez, the first at-bat where he hooks the double, that’s a bad [changeup], so it flattens out,” Weaver stated. “You saw some better ones that are running. Those are just the moments of … I know what it’s supposed to look like … and in a big moment, I need that to somewhat be in that area. In the Yankees outing, that’s where it went wrong. Obviously, very frustrating, so work was done.”

In the previous, the changeup had been one in every of Weaver’s go-to pitches, but it surely hadn’t been working the best way he was used to over his eight-year Major League profession. So in between begins, the right-hander adjusted his hand positioning to attempt to get it again on monitor.

And it labored properly for him. After Yepez’s double, just one different changeup was hit into play. Nine of his 19 changeups generated whiffs, and he closed out 4 of his six strikeouts with the pitch. 

“I put in a lot of work this week to try to tweak that,” Weaver stated. “Today, [the changeup] came to life with some swings and misses, and [it was] competitive in 3-2 counts, except for the last one obviously. That’s the completeness of the arsenal, being able to throw a curveball, slider and changeup. I wouldn’t disagree and say that it was probably the best it’s been in a while.”

Weaver started to wrestle close to the top of his outing, which was common for him this season. He had a 2.00 ERA this season within the second by way of fourth innings coming into Thursday and a 14.09 ERA within the fifth inning and later.

Pitching within the seventh for simply the second time this season, Weaver allowed a protracted flyout to Paul DeJong to open the inning. That was adopted by a single by Burleson, and when Yepez was hit by the ninth pitch of the subsequent plate look, supervisor David Bell got here out to take away his starter and herald reliever Lucas Sims. One catcher pickoff and foul-tip strikeout later, Weaver’s line was closed on his first scoreless outing of the season.

“Yepez had a really good at-bat there. I just tried to do too much,” Weaver stated. “I wasn’t holding back. I ripped the changeup. It just didn’t come out the right way. It’s all competitive. I can live with that.”

With his changeup on level, the righty was in a position to combine his different pitches to maintain the Cardinals off stability. His different two strikeouts got here on low fastballs, and he excelled at limiting exhausting contact, tying a season low with 5 hard-hit balls (over 95 mph exit velocity).

“He had a really good changeup, a really good slider, but he’d also get ahead with those two pitches and finish with a really good fastball late,” Bell stated. “It made it very unpredictable. Located his pitches, changed speeds and he has good stuff, too. It was great to get him deep into the game, very efficient couple of games.”