SEATTLE — In order to throw more, Ryan Weathers is throwing less.
On Monday night, the new Yankees left-hander will begin to find out just how healthy that new approach will keep him during the regular season.
Weathers, set to make his Yankees debut in the series opener against the Mariners at T-Mobile Park, has never been questioned for his talent, but too often in his career he has not been able to show it because of too much time spent on the injured list.
So when the Yankees acquired the 26-year-old son of former reliever David Weathers from the Marlins in January, they tweaked not only his arsenal, but his throwing program as well. The goal was to lighten his workload between starts, meaning less throwing and from shorter distances.
“Some guys that throw hard like to throw a lot, and I think that’s one thing that we’ve found is trying to find ways to modulate the throwing program a little bit,” pitching coach Matt Blake said during spring training. “Finding ways to take a breather every now and again — it doesn’t mean detrain yourself, but it also means give yourself a chance to recover and then keep building.”
Weathers will still occasionally long toss on the days he throws his between-starts bullpen session, but, for the most part, that is reserved only for warming up before a start. Now, he typically will not throw farther than 90 feet while monitoring the amount he throws while playing catch.
On Saturday at Oracle Park, for example, Weathers made 41 throws on flat ground before tossing a 25-pitch bullpen session for a total of 66 throws. Previously in his career, he would rack up anywhere from 80-100 throws on a bullpen day.
Weathers has been open to change since arriving to his new organization, including this, even if it took some getting used to.
“It was weird at first, because I love to throw,” he said Saturday. “But now it’s kind of like second nature. We got some internal numbers that have really helped me get in the right direction with my throwing patterns. Everything feels good right now, so got to keep rolling with it.”
Besides feeling good physically and in his recovery, Weathers is also “throwing the hardest I’ve ever thrown right now,” he said. He pointed to reaching 101 mph in the third inning of his final spring outing Tuesday against the Cubs — “that’s uncharted waters for me,” he added — and hitting 98.5 mph on his 76th pitch out of 80.
“Being this early, I’m really encouraged with where my arm health’s at,” he said.
Of course, now the most important thing beyond staying healthy is getting results. Weathers bookended his spring with strong outings (one run across a combined 8 ²/₃ innings), but in three starts in between gave up 16 earned runs across 8 ²/₃ innings on 22 hits, three walks and two hit batters.
Weathers and the Yankees largely chalked up the rough numbers to poor batted-ball luck — a .434 batting average on balls in play would seem to back that up — insisting that the underlying numbers were much more encouraging and the stuff was still crisp.
But now that the games and results actually count — and after Max Fried, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren set the tone for the rotation by giving up just one run across 16 innings in the opening series against the Giants — the pressure will be on Weathers to deliver like he is capable.
“I’m excited,” said Weathers, whose dad is expected to be in attendance Monday. “It’s been fun being a Yankee in the spring, I can’t imagine during the year.
“I won’t stop saying it, there’s a sense of pride when you put this logo on and you want to do well for the team and the organization. So I can’t wait for my number to be called and go out there and throw.”