Thank You Jeff Weaver ...

Thank You Jeff Weaver ...

For the past several seasons now the M's have sucked. They have been brutally bad at times. There have been horrible signings of players so common fans are becoming jaded. And yet, this season, there is a glimmer of hope. The M's are pretty good. They are a bit up and down, but worth going to. They are at least competetive. There are player signings that have worked. Kudos to the same people that the fans have been booing the last few years.

And then there is the Jeff Weaver signing. He has been worse than bad. It is almost three months into the season going into last night's game and he has no wins. He has been pulled very, very early in games for pitching very, very badly. He has been so bad that they put him on IR for what had to be "suck-itis" just to give him a break to try and figure things out.

Well, since he came off the IR for "suck-itis" he has pitched reasonably well. So, last night when Tim and I went to the game I was not quite as worried as I should have or could have been.

The result? A complete game 4 hit shutout. He faces 5 over the minimum and only throws something like 108 pitches. He strikes out 5 and walks only 2. He retires something like 16 straight at one point. He picks off a runner, one of the single coolest things that can ever happen in a baseball game. He only faces as many as 5 batters in an inning once. There are only 2 baserunners on at one time once. It is as steady and solid a pitching performance as I have ever witnessed by an M's starter.

When he got the big ovation after the 8th and at the start of the 9th I was genuinely happy for the guy. It was clear his teammates and the fans wanted him to get that shutout. It was clear that everyone there knew that the M's need him to pitch well to make a run at the Angels or for the Wild Card.

It was almost enough to make up for missing a different M's pitching performance in June of 1990 ... which is a story for another time and referenced in an old entry on this blog ...

(my scorekeeping is not perfect, but I think it should pretty much match up to the official box score)