When Ryan Weathers was traded to the New York Yankees in the offseason, he didn’t need to go far to find someone to ask about what it’s like pitching in pinstripes.
The left-hander just had to check with his father, David, who won a World Series ring with the Bronx Bombers in 1996.
The younger Weathers, 26, is set to make his Yankees debut against the Mariners on Monday night in Seattle.
“My dad told me, ‘Have fun. There’s no place like playing in New York,'” he said. “You’re either going to throw the ball well or you don’t, but you can’t worry about it. You’ve got to be yourself and do what you do. My focus is on strike one and getting ahead of batters. If I do that, it’s going to be a good year.”
Weathers went 2-2 with a 3.99 ERA last season in eight games (all starts) with the Miami Marlins. The seventh overall pick in the 2018 draft by San Diego, he’s 12-23 with a 4.93 ERA over five seasons with the Padres and Marlins.
With starters Gerrit Cole, Carlos Rodon and Clarke Schmidt opening the season on the injured list, Weathers is getting a chance to show what he can do.
“If Ryan is half the teammate his dad was, we’ll be in good shape,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “He’s got a big arm, a lot of talent, and he’s really athletic. I think he has only really scratched the surface of what he can do at the big-league level.”
Weathers, who is 0-0 with a 2.25 ERA in one career start against the Mariners, will have a hard act to follow after the Yankees allowed just one run in sweeping a season-opening, three-game series at San Francisco.
Aaron Judge homered in the last two games of the series, including in a 3-1 victory Saturday before the Yankees had a rare Sunday off.
“One thing from the past couple of years we’ve struggled at was finishing series and sweeping series,” Judge said. “Pre-game, we talked about it: ‘Hey, we’ve got to close out a series.’ That’s what’s going to make the difference between winning the division or ending up tied. Every game matters.”
The Mariners, meanwhile, opened the season with a split of a four-game series with the visiting Cleveland Guardians. Seattle won 8-0 Sunday as Emerson Hancock pitched six hitless innings with a career-high nine strikeouts and Brendan Donovan hit a three-run homer.
“What a ballgame in probably one of the colder days I can remember at this ballpark,” said Mariners manager Dan Wilson, referring to the 43-degree temperature at the 4:20 p.m. PT first pitch Sunday.
“What an incredible performance by Emerson Hancock. We talked about it this spring that he had and just how he was attacking the zone with his stuff. (Sunday) was just an extension of that. It was impressive.”
The Mariners are scheduled to start three-time All-Star Luis Castillo (11-8, 3.54 ERA in 2025) on Monday. After starting on Opening Day in both 2023 and 2024, the right-hander ceded that role to Logan Gilbert last year.
With Bryce Miller (oblique) on the injured list, the Mariners opted to start Hancock on Sunday and save Castillo for the Yankees, against whom he’s 1-3 with a 2.74 ERA in seven starts.
–Field Level Media
