Surely Weiland is not one of the Red Sox top prospects and was rated #18 in the system to start 2011 by John Sickels, but he got his first taste of the majors on Sunday and showed his youth with a lack of control. He was promoted due to the Red Sox pitching rotation being a walking IR right now and a solid start to his Triple-A career this season.
He has had walk problems in the minors with a BB/9 of 3.87 in high A ball and 3.44 in Double-A. This season he has thrown 3.58 in Triple-A so no major steps forward in the control numbers. He can rack up the strikeouts though with a 9.58 K/9 so far this year. He will need to maintain that to be effective in the majors.
He did not do that on Sunday though, with only 2 strikeouts and 2 walks in only 4 IP he has something to work on for next time. His control was a major issue with only 42 strikes in 78 pitches. His major issue was his fastball, which was only a strike 48 percent of the time.
He threw all four pitches during the game, but only the Slider and curve ball had some success. His fastball was inconsistent and had a linear weight of 4.49, which is really really bad. It was up in the zone and also just as likely to be inside or outside as over the heart of the plate.
Being called up to the big leagues is a big moment and he would be kidding himself if he said he wasn’t nervous, but Weiland’s debut was probably not his best. He’ll get another shot I’m sure now that he is on the 40 man roster and hopefully we’ll see better from him.
John Lackey Roller Coaster Continues
While frustrating as anything Lackey has stepped up at just the right moment to have what might have been his best appearance as a Red Sox pitcher in almost a year. The interesting timing is this comes almost a year after his July 4th appearance last year against the Orioles when he went 7.1 innings and 7 strikeouts and 1 walk. Saturday he faced the Orioles with 7 strikeouts and only one walk in only 6.2 innings.
His pitches were dominant and he had solid velocity. It dropped again in the late going, but he was able to hold off on any damage late in the game.
We have discussed his “cutter” ad nauseam, but Saturday it went from straight back to more of a four seamer and resulted in 64 percent strikes and 8 whiffs. All good signs and with the evidence we found that Lackey pitches better once July comes we should expect more good appearances from him.lackey