Weaver, Arizona crushed in Miami
D-Backs drop another to Marlins to lose series
Diamondbacks right-hander Luke Weaver turned in another unsatisfying start on Wednesday evening. At times he was punished for falling behind in counts. Other times he was unable to put hitters away with two strikes. And then for stretches he was working fast, pitching aggressively and getting outs.
There was not, however, enough of the latter in an 8-0 loss to the Miami Marlins to avoid the inevitable questions about his immediate future in the rotation. Questions that were met, tellingly, with non-answers from manager Torey Lovullo.
“Everybody is evaluated here,” Lovullo said. “We’re going to evaluate this start. I haven’t had a chance to sit with the staff. We’re going to talk about this and see where we got to go. I think everybody is treated the same way.”
Lovullo did not guarantee Weaver another start. He did not say he wouldn’t get one, either. But it seems clear that the clock, at least, is ticking, and Weaver — in the event he does pitch again in five days — is going to need to show more than he has recently.
Weaver allowed two runs in the first and four in the second on Wednesday night, the big blow coming in the form of a three-run homer by Adam Duvall. Weaver lasted just four innings. He has given up 17 runs in 17 innings in his past four starts.
In his second start of the season, Weaver dominated the Cincinnati Reds
over seven innings of one-hit ball. That performance, however, is beginning to look like an aberration. When removed from his stat line, Weaver’s season has been bleak; in his other five starts, he has posted a 7.94 ERA, giving up 20 runs in 22 2/3 innings.
Weaver seemed still to be searching for answers while speaking with reporters after the game. His final two innings were impressive. He retired each of the six batters he faced, striking out three. He said he was pitching with a different sort of mindset than early in the game but didn’t seem to know how the switch was flipped.
“It’s super frustrating because the conversations aren’t like, ‘You look terrible, things are off,’” Weaver said.
“It’s like, ‘Oh, there’s this one little thing.’ It’s like, good gracious, you can show up whenever you like, that’d be great.”
Weaver came back to that line of thinking multiple times: He does not think he is far from recapturing the form he showed against the Reds.
He called it a “teeny, little minor adjustment,” though he did not say — or did not know —whether that would be mechanical adjustment or one pertaining to his mentality.
“When it’s good, it’s real good,” Lovullo said.
“He can spoil us. We just want more of that. We know that there’s going to be some bumpy roads or rough waters, however you want to categorize it, we just want to limit that to one or two runs instead of five or six runs.”