Greg Weissert has disastrous Major League debut outing for Yankees
Fan favorite Nestor Cortes’ injury gives Greg Weissert his shot at the big leagues, and the moment was bigger than the ex-Fordham pitcher could handle
In the film Major League, Charlie Sheen’s character was called “Wild Thing” because, despite clearly having the stuff, he was, well… wild. No matter what he did, he simply could not get control of his pitches. The New York Yankees got an up-close view of what that looks like when Greg Weissert took the mound in his major league debut outing.
With Nestor Cortes’ groin injury opening a spot in the rotation, the Yankees called up Weissert from Triple-A Scranton Wilkes Barre to face the Oakland A’s. With a solid minor league season underway, notching up 67 strikeouts in 46 innings, and a WHIP of 0.891 in 40 appearances, he definitely has the stuff.
Your MLB debut is going to be daunting anyway. As a pitcher, it is not like you can stand in the outfield and hope nothing gets hit your way, you are on the mound, front and center, the guy who has every eye in the stadium and television glued on him. But there is daunting and then there is letting the situation get on top of you.
Weissert’s first pitch hit Jonah Bride on the leg. Getting visibly flustered on the mound, Weissert shifted around while on the rubber for a balk. Delivering his second pitch, a slider, he managed to hit Skye Bolt in the knee. Finally getting a bit of luck, he retired Nick Allen on a pop fly, before walking Tony Kemp on four straight. He managed to work Vimael Machin to a full count before tossing a slider to the backstop to walk in a run.
Manager Aaron Boone pulled the rookie, who now has an 81.00 ERA on 15 pitches thrown. But Boone was not critical of the outing. “It’s only up from there. Things sped up on him a little bit, but it doesn’t change what we think about him.”
And that “we” means all of the Yankees, including his team mates. Weissert sat, dejected, on one end of the bench after being pulled, clearly frustrated with himself, but one by one, Yankee players came over to encourage him. Jose Trevino and Aaron Judge sat by him telling him to relax, take a deep breath, realize that it happens to everyone and you need to move past it.
Aaron Boone concurs, saying, “We think he can really help us. Get that one out of the way and we’ll try to get him back out there in a different situation.”
The Yankees went on to tear the A’s apart, getting a 13-4 road win after bouncing back from that opening.
With Cortes out for a couple of weeks, Greg Weissert should get another shot in five or six days. What he makes of that outing will be far more important that his single “Wild Thing” re-enactment. If he delivers the pitching that he is capable of, the 27-year-old New York native could be a tasty addition to the Yankees rotation.