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Matheny: Weaver trying too hard to be perfect
- Updated: August 21, 2016
PHILADELPHIA — Luke Weaver gets nerves before every game. But the special jitters he had before his first Major League start a week ago have subsided.
What hasn’t subsided, manager Mike Matheny speculated after the Cardinals’ 4-2 loss to the Phillies on Saturday, is the high regard in which Weaver holds Major League hitters. Not to be mistaken, facing big league hitters is much different than facing Minor Leaguers — but it can force a young pitcher into trying to be too perfect.
Transitioning to the bigs can sometimes lead to aiming the ball too much, thus leading to misses and an elevated pitch count.
Weaver didn’t walk a batter over five innings in his second big league start, but it took him 96 pitches to get through five. In his debut, he used 85 to make it through four.
“If there’s one thing I think he’s doing, he might be giving hitters at this level too much credit,” Matheny said. “It looks like he’s trying to be perfect here. That’s something we can tell him, but it’s something that he’ll have to learn.”
It sounded like Weaver had gotten the message …
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