Unthinkable lack of run support for Ryan Weathers still doesn't excuse Yankees struggles

Back in the day, when people used a pitcher's win-loss record to evaluate his performance, a guy like Ryan Weathers would've been in trouble. The New York Yankees' lone addition to the starting rotation is 0-2 on the season. Even worse, no matter how well he'd pitched, he'd still be winless, as he's the only starting pitcher in the game to make four starts and receive exactly zero run support. Wild, but true.

That speaks more to the ineptitude of the Yankees' offense this year. After winning a slugfest to kick off the series against the Los Angeles Angels, one would have hoped that would be a stepping stone to ignite the bats. Instead, with Weathers on the bump for the second game of the four-game set, New York's hitters turned into pumpkins.

Of course, some of that had to be expected when Aaron Boone decided to sit the hottest hitter in the sport, Ben Rice, because he feared the left-on-left matchup with Angels' southpaw, Reid Detmers. The same Detmers who has a reverse split for his career and had been so bad over the first three years of his career that he was banished to the bullpen for the entirety of the 2025 campaign. No one is doing Weathers any favors - but he's been more skittish than spectacular hmself.

The Yankees need Ryan Weathers to build consistency, regardless of run support woes

The raw numbers on Weathers — a 4.29 ERA, 21 innings, 12.00 K/9, 3.00 BB/9 — don't seem terrible. You love the strikeouts, wish the walks were a tick lower, and can believe the ERA will come down, but in reality, there's a different story at play.

The hard-throwing lefty has just one start where he lasted longer than five innings, which was an eight-inning gem on April 9 against the Athletics. Could he follow up on that against the Angels? The answer was no. Weathers gave up three first-inning homers and five in total, surrendering five earned runs over five innings.

There are two big issues that the 26-year-old needs to correct. One is his efficiency. It's not uncommon for high-strikeout pitchers to consistently work deep into counts and run up high pitch counts. That's what has led to him averaging just a shade over five innings per start while averaging 90 pitches per outing. Again, the eight-inning outlier against the A's does a lot of the work here and makes the number look rosier.

The second problem that needs to be addressed is the quality of contact he has given up. While he's gotten a lot of strikeouts, when hitters do make contact, it's often loud. His barrel rate (14.5%) is a 13th percentile mark. His hard-hit rate of 43.6% ranks in the 34th percentile. He also struggles to keep the ball on the ground, generating grounders at a 32.7% clip.

So while Weathers hasn't been supported with winning efforts from his offense, he's also failed to put up many winning efforts himself. He can only control what's in his power, but that doesn't mean that the Yankees don't need more out of him.

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