After something historic like a no-hitter, the best place in the world is probably Brooks Baseball, where you can dig through stats and graphs and data. I’m not a math/stats guy, so if I can read some of it, so can you.
The Pitches Jered Weaver Threw
Except for that. What in the absolute hell.
But from the rest, here are some tidbits:
- Weaver didn't have a huge strike zone, but he was getting the third-base side of the plate with some regularity. Look at that graph as if you were the catcher, and then look for the orange dots. For most of that game, Weaver was getting calls on outside pitches to left-handers.
- Average speed: 89 m.p.h. We've been conditioned to freak about about velocity dips, such as with Tim Lincecum, but Weaver has been quietly losing velocity for a while. The difference is a) Weaver knows where the hell the ball is going, and b) he has always relied on the movement of his fastball more than raw power. Weaver's as good as ever.
- Of the 121 pitches thrown, the Twins swung and missed at just 10 of them. Weaver threw 52 two-seamers; the Twins missed just one.
- Weaver's velocity declined throughout the night, and he didn't crack 90 m.p.h. from about the sixth inning on ... until he threw he threw his second hardest pitch -- a 92-m.p.h. fastball -- on his third-to-last pitch of the night. Hellllllooooooo adrenaline!
Turns out Weaver was really, really good on Wednesday night. Really, really good. The best way to show the artistry of Weaver is with a simple graph that Dan Brooks tweeted out. Weaver is like two different pitchers when it comes to left-handers and right-handers, with a different set of pitches for each.
There are about 2,398 different things that I didn’t touch on (or didn’t understand!) on the page for Weaver’s game, so check it out for yourself. I don’t even remember what it was like to be a baseball fan in 1995.
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