Weaver improving
Right-hander is feeling better as the season goes along. Pujols reaches 100 RBIs.
Right-hander says he is feeling better and thinks he can build strength during off-season.
TORONTO — Jered Weaver does not plan to retire after the 2016 season. The free-agent-to-be indicated as much in his most certain terms of the year after he pitched the Angels to a 6-3 victory over Toronto on Thursday at the Rogers Centre.
He had said in spring training he would be inclined to retire if he was as unsuccessful as last season. He has been worse, but he is enjoying it more.
“I’m feeling better as we go on,” the 33-year-old righthander said. “There’s still a lot of work to be done. I just think it’s gonna take an offseason to figure this out and finally gain some strength back.”
He wielded some of his better stuff of the season, particularly in terms of command, in this start. The first man he faced was Jose Bautista, returning from two weeks on the disabled list because of a sore knee. Weaver struck him out on four pitches, the fourth an 84-mph fastball just above the strike zone that Bautista could not reach.
He soon struck out Edwin Encarnacion to end the inning and thus matched his strikeout total from his previous two starts combined. Weaver yielded his first run, helped along by a Gregorio Petit error, on a sacrifice fly in the second.
Josh Donaldson smashed a solo home run in the fifth for the second run. The baseball was clocked at 81 mph off Weaver’s fingertips, then was clocked at 111 mph off Donaldson’s bat. The 31st home run Weaver has yielded this season, it traveled 453 feet to straightaway center field.
But he made no more such mistakes. In the sixth, Weaver loaded the bases on a walk and two singles, but rookie Jose Valdez entered and pitched out of the jam.
The Angels mounted their first rally earlier in that inning. Kaleb Cowart led off with a double and Petit walked. Kole Calhoun followed by lining a single off Toronto starter J.A. Happ’s left foot. After examination, the left-hander stayed in the game to face Mike Trout with the bases loaded. There were no outs, and Trout worked the count to two and two before he took an outside changeup and f lopped it
into left field for a two-run single.
Albert Pujols followed with a go-ahead single for his 100th run batted in of the season. In so doing he became the fifth major leaguer ever to reach that mark in 13 seasons. Pujols smashed a Happ fastball to the bleachers in the first inning, only to
watch it fly a foot foul down the first base line.
The RBI milestone marked an occasion to celebrate him, though Pujols was unwilling to admit to the feat holding any meaning. Asked about it, he said he had reached 100 RBIs before. The man whom he has driven in one-quarter of those
times, Trout, said more.
“He could easily shut it down,” said Trout, who added a second bases-loaded single in the seventh to score two more. “He’s got messed up legs. But he comes in and works hard and tries to be on the field with us, and that’s all you could ask for.”
Weaver praised both
players for their performances in the three games in Toronto, in the Angels’ best road series in a month. He said he relished being the bearer of bad news to the Blue Jays. And, he said, he was collecting hope and motivation for the future.
“I know what I need to do
now,” he said. “It’s kind of been a mystery the last couple years. I’m looking forward to putting in the work to get back. It’s just a matter of getting my body realigned again, and hopefully grinding through another season and seeing what happens.”