Weaver Raises Bar For Cy Young

Jered Weaver set a tough pace for his AL Cy Young competition to keep up with this weekend. Sure, it didn't hurt that he pitched against the Triple-A offense of the Seattle Mariners on Friday night. The Mariners have baseball's worst .280 team wOBA (weighted on base average) which is a full 10 points behind the next closest terrible team. It doesn't even look like the joke of a lineup the Astros are running out can catch the Mariners in futility this year and they're led by 5'3 Jose Altuve.

But back to Weaver, he pitched nine shutout innings allowing seven hits and one walk to eight strikeouts. He failed to pick up the win due to his own team's inept offense. Weaver leads the league with his 1.78 ERA and 2.58 FIP (fielding independent pitching). His 5.5 fWAR (Fangraphs wins above replacement) is just a shade, maybe one start, behind Justin Verlander's 5.7 and CC Sabathia's 5.9.

Sabathia had the roughest outing of the trio but he also had the most difficult matchup. Boston has his number this season and lit the big man up over six innings for seven runs on nine hits. On the opposing mound, John Lackey surprisingly managed to make it through six innings without giving up double digit runs, a feat Kyle Davies didn't know was possible. Speaking of Kansas City (awesome segue, me), I was stunned Verlander didn't take a no-hitter into the seventh inning against the Royals. In fact, Verlander only went seven innings giving up three runs on five hits with eight strikeouts.

Up next... Weaver dropped the appeal for his six game suspension after his temper and a fastball in the direction of Alex Avila's head got away from him last week. He will miss the Yankees series and be back on the mound Saturday in Toronto. The Blue Jays lineup is certainly no cupcake and even tougher in their hitter friendly home park.

Sabathia will toe the rubber at home against the Rays on Friday night and Verlander will be on the road in Cleveland to throw against the Indians on Thursday.

Weaver Loses Temper, Verlander Loses No-Hitter

Sunday's Angels-Tigers game lived up to its hype. Billed as a pitchers duel between two of the AL's best, it fell just shy of pistols from becoming an actual duel. Both Jered Weaver and Justin Verlander entered the day with a 5.1 fWAR, good for second in the American League. Weaver and Verlander were also in the top four in ERA, FIP and WPA. But those will all be topics for a future post, this is about one day game and what happened close to the chalk lines.

The excitement started in the bottom of the third inning. After Weaver managed to somehow put Don Kelly on base with a walk, Magglio Ordonez hit a hanging change-up 388 feet. Ordonez watched the ball stay fair for the two-run home run. Weaver took exception to the time it took Ordonez to leave the batter's box and shot him a combo stink/evil eye as he rounded the bases. Weaver shook it off and retired the next 12 Tigers he faced.

Fast forwarding to the bottom of the seventh inning, Weaver surrendered a solo home run to Carlos Guillen. Guillen, unlike Ordonez earlier, deliberately showed up the Angels ace by watching the homer, flipping his bat and turning toward Weaver during a sideways trot to first. Home Plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt went to the mound in an attempt to cool off the visibly upset Weaver and issued warnings to both benches. Cooler heads would prevail until Weaver's very next pitch.


Weaver threw over Mike Avila's head and began walking off the mound and yelling at Guillen in the dugout before Wendelstedt could make the ejection motion. I certainly don't condone a pitcher throwing at another player's head and I'm afraid a suspension is looming. Personally I choose to believe that pitch got away from Weaver and wasn't meant for Avila's head. I don't cheer for retaliation.


Oh, right.

In the meantime, Verlander was just tossing another no-hitter through seven innings. Still 3-0, Erick Aybar led of the eighth inning with a "violation of the unwritten rules of no-hitter decency" bunt. Verlander fielded it, threw it away and got the benefit of some home cooking from the scorer. Ruled an error, Verlander kept his no-hitter in tact. Mark Trumbo grounded Aybar to third and then Aybar would score on a bizarre fielder's choice/rundown between third and home. Howie Kendrick struck out before Maicer Izturis broke up the no-hitter with a liner into left field.

Verlander had some choice words for Aybar which seemed to indicate a fastball has Ayabar's name on it next time around. Jose Valverde closed the game to give the Tigers a 3-2 win. Now for some post game quotes courtesy of ESPN.com...

"I had a lot of respect for those guys, but then they stand at the plate and do something like that," Weaver said. "I'm not going to try to hit someone, but what Guillen did crossed the line."

See? Told you guys he wasn't trying to hit Avila.

"I don't hit many homers anymore, and I wanted to make sure that it stayed fair," Ordonez said. "After that, he was yelling at me to run faster, and I told him that I'm old -- that's as fast as I run.

"I'm not going to show anyone up. That's not me."

Funny and true.

"Magglio has 14 years in the major leagues," said Guillen, one of Ordonez's closest friends. "You don't tell him to run. I respect people when they respect us. If you don't respect us, you don't get it."

Guillen defending respect with one asshole action after another.

"I know it was only 3-0, so I can understand there are arguments on both sides. But as a pitcher, we call that bush league," he (Verlander) said. "I think he was trying to get his team back into the game, but I also think it was a response to things that had happened before."

Blame that respectmonger Guillen.

"That's my game -- I don't have power," he (Aybar) said. "(Verlander) told me he'd get me next year, and I said that was OK."

While true, Aybar has more home runs this season than Ordonez and Guillen combined. It was a little dick-ish. Awesome. And a little dick-ish.

And then Torii Hunter summed it all up.

"That was stupid -- it was all stupid. Everybody was stupid," he said. "That was unprofessional on both sides."

Maybe. Or best game of the season.

Jered Weaver Expected To Start All Star Game

Jered Weaver was informed Sunday morning that he will start the All Star Game on Tuesday night for the American League squad. The official announcement won't be made until Monday which leaves plenty of time for Weaver to back out. With the recent rash of replacements, I think the only Major League pitcher who hasn't been on the All Start roster yet is Kyle Davies. But I hope Weav sticks with it as he'll be just the fifth Angels pitcher to start an ASG and the first since Mark Langston in 1993.

Weaver deserves it too whether you want to look at box score stats or advanced metrics. In the AL, he's first in ERA (1.86), second in wins (11), second in innings (140.1) and fifth in strikeouts (120). Plus he's first in FIP (2.39), tERA (2.36) and WAR (4.7). Sure, I cherry picked those stats but Weaver is still having a phenomenal season. Even with some regression from career bests in LOB% (81.2) and HR/FB% (2.7!), Weaver is still well on his way to topping his career high 5.9 WAR from last year. He can also expect a nice bump in salary as he heads into his last season of arbitration. That's a frightening post for another time though.

Weaver and manager Mike Scioscia are prohibited from discussing the announcement until it is actually, well, announced. But Weav was asked about it after his last start...

Asked after Thursday night's win about the possibility of starting the All-Star game, Weaver said, "It would be very cool. I’ve grown up seeing Pedro Martinez and Roger Clemens, guys like that, in those situations. To be able to start would be very gratifying.”

Sorry, I dozed off during that quote. I get sleepy reading cookie cutter answers to questions even if it's from my favorite players. I don't know what I was expecting him to say. MLB and management seem to frown upon athletes saying "F*ck yeah, bro, that'd be the tits" on live broadcasts or to media outlets. Maybe that's why I'm so fond of Ozzie Guillen and his broken English tirades.

Either way, congrats Jered. You deserve it.

Curveballs for Jobu 4/16/2011

Curveballs for Jobu is Offbasepercentage's daily trip around the ballparks.

Today's honorary bat boy is Tim Unroe.

Cardinals 11, Dodgers 2.
Looks like that Pujols fella is starting to warm up. Albert went 2-5 with a pair of homers. What's weird though is that Lance Berkman hit his fifth and sixth home runs of the season. I don't think there's anyway he keeps this up and he plays right field like he's cemented to the field but so far that signing looks pretty good.

Angels 4, White Sox 3.
After a rain delay, Jered Weaver gave up a two-run home run to Adam Dunn and saw his ERA baloon to 1.30. And he only struck out four so I'm starting to worry about him. He did run his record to 4-0 and I'm beginning to get cautiously optimistic about the Angels 2011 chances in the West.

Rangers 5, Yankees 3.
The Yankees took turns hitting into double plays (6!) and the Rangers got 8 strong innings from Matt Harrison to keep rolling right along. Damn, the Rangers drive me crazy.

Padres 4, Astros 2.
Isn't that adorable? They think they're real MLB teams.

Royals 6, Mariners 5.
Jeff Francoeur, hitting cleanup for the Royals, went 3-4 with a home run and zero strikeouts. He's hitting .327/.339/.509 so far. As soon as I see some locusts, I'm declaring Apocalypse.

Other games, but down here....

Indians 8, Orioles 2.
Blue Jays 7, Red Sox 6.
Rays 5, Twins 2.
Tigers 8, A's 4 (10).
Nationals 4, Brewers 3 (10).
Marlins 4, Phillies 3.
Pirates 6, Reds 1.
Braves, Mets PPD
Rockies 5, Cubs 0.
Giants 5, Diamondbacks 2.

Weaver Isn't Bummed About Making $7.365M

The Angels poor off-season continued into Spring Training with the news that Kendry Morales still isn't running at 100% and is questionable to start the season. And too a lesser extent, it appears that Maicer Izturis and his .321 on base percentage from 2010 will be leading off. But there is some good news for my Angels fan brethren. Jered Weaver wasn't fazed by losing his arbitration case...

"It was interesting – kind of fun in a way," said Weaver who attended the four-hour hearing in Arizona Wednesday, listening as both sides made their cases. The arbitrator sided with the Angels and their $7.365 million offer. (Weaver had sought $8.8 million.)

"It wasn't like sitting in math class where I wasn't paying attention. It was interesting. It's one of those things I wish I didn't have to do. But the game has become very business-oriented and the biggest thing I learned is that business is business."

*snip*

"I would love to play with the Angels for a long time and I think they know that," Weaver said. "But that (contract talks) is not something I want hanging over head during the season."

Of course, what is Weaver supposed to say there? And I'm sure he wouldn't mind spending more of his career in Orange County but the problem isn't necessarily with Weaver. Arte Moreno and the Angels have declared war against Weaver's agent, the diabolical Scott Boras.

The Angels have one more bout of arbitration left next year if they can't get a long term deal completed with Weaver. And with all of his metrics headed in the right direction, Boras could demand a Felix Hernandez-esque extension or probably make more by taking him to free agency.

I remember when the only headaches I got from being an Angels fan were due to those damn thunder sticks.