Ladies and gentlemen, Jered Weaver is once again bringing the heat. Well, by his standards.
In last night’s game, we saw something from Jered that we haven’t seen in quite some time: fastballs “blazing” in at 91 MPH. Not just one, but like several. SEVERAL! This is a huge development.
All we’ve heard about the last few years is Jered’s steadily declining velocity, but he reached back and found some of his old heat for one game. 91 MPH isn’t very fast, but this is a guy whose average fastball has been just a tick over 86 MPH this year. For those of you who think this might just have been a radar gun reading fluke, the proof is right here:
![4235_P_FA_20140913[1]](http://bloguin.com/monkeyhalo/wp-content/uploads/sites/101/2014/09/4235_P_FA_201409131.png)
That’s the best average fastball velocity game Jered has posted since early in 2012. It is a total aberration among his games this season, but there is a chance that it might be foretelling of something more promising. If it is, you need to look no further than the results in this game with Jered fanning 12. I know it is the Astros and whiffing is kind of there thing, but 12 strikeouts is impressive no matter who the opponent is. Also, Jered hasn’t had a double-digit strikeout game since… you guessed, early in 2012 when he last threw this hard. That could be a coincidence, but it could also not be.
Obviously we don’t know how this came about or if it is repeatable, but I can safely say that I’ll be watching the radar gun like a hawk in his next game.
Run Expectancy Rundown
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No biggie, just Mike Trout hitting two homers like he do. Howie Kendrick also remained red hot, but this night was all about Trout putting on a show. He was so locked in that he even got the Barry Bonds treatment in one at-bat, loading the bases just to avoid pitching to him. Collin Cowgill had another nice game, too. If/when Hamilton comes back, Cowgill is proving that he should get a shot at staying in the lineup either as DH or in left with Hamilton DHing.
Starting Pitcher Scores
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This wasn’t Jered’s best game score of the season, that was for his complete game against Houston in May, but this was probably the best he’s looked all year. Not to belabor the point, but that velocity uptick is something worth getting excited about.
As fun as it was to watch Weaver, I think the real highlight of this game is that this will be the last time in 2014 we get subjected to watching Scott Feldman take his sweet ass time between every single pitch.
Bullpen Battle
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Kevin Jepsen didn’t pitch very well, but the more important development was that Huston Street returned and looked perfectly fine. The fact that he missed a week of action is probably more of a blessing in disguise than anything else. As for the Astros bullpen, they did their usual horrible job.
Game Flow
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This is the most drama we’ve seen in an Angels game in quite some time, but the Angels never once saw their win expectancy drop below 50%.
Halo Hero
I know Trout had two homers, but Jered threw 91 MPH! How can I possibly ignore that?
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