Greg Weissert bounces back after dismal debut
ANAHEIM — It didn’t take Greg Weissert long to get over his major league debut. The rookie right-hander came out of Thursday night’s game after having hit two batters with his first two major league pitches and had a balk in between. He’d walked the next two guys and forced Aaron Boone to come out and get him.
Sitting in the dugout, catching his breath from a moment that clearly had snowballed on him, Weissert was surrounded by the teammates he’d basically just met. Aaron Judge sat down next to him and tried to make him laugh. After the game, Ron Marinaccio and Clarke Schmidt got him laughing and guided him out of the clubhouse. Even former teammates, like veteran Ryan Weber down in Scranton, texted him to try and help.
“I think it was a lot of anticipation and a lot of build up into that first debut after all the time in the minors and stuff like that,” Weissert said. “So it definitely sped up a little bit, but I was able to step back and take a look at it objectively and kind of went into the next one with a different mindset.”
The 27-year-old out of Fordham University shook it off quickly. In two appearances since, he has pitched four scoreless innings. Tuesday night, he came in an emergency situation when Jameson Taillon left the game after two innings having taken a line drive off his right forearm. Weissert pitched two scoreless innings, including getting out reigning American League MVP Shohei Ohtani and former AL MVP Mike Trout. Weissert got his first win.
“It feels great to put it behind me. It was definitely something to think about. But I knew that I got called for a reason,” Weissert said. “So I just stuck to my game plan and you know, talked to some guys down in Triple-A. Ryan Weber gave me some advice when I went back out there so it took some advice focused on my breathing and was able to get the job done in the next two.”
Weissert, who was the closer at Triple-A Scranton, has struck out five in 4.1 innings pitched. He has not walked a batter since his debut.
“It’s really good to see it and giving us two innings there after two [innings] two days ago,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said, “it’s not exactly how I’d want to do it, but he was so efficient. That was big, that set us up to kind of roll out the guys how we wanted to do it from that point on and credit to him. That first outing was rough, it was not good, and it’s easy to have it snowball on you up here. He kind of put his foot down.”
