Weathers learning the craft of closing

By Jack Etkin, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published August 12, 2008 at 9:52 p.m.
Updated August 12, 2008 at 9:52 p.m.

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In essence, this season has marked the professional beginning for reliever Casey Weathers. He did pitch in 14 games last year, 13 at low Single-A Asheville, after the Rockies drafted him eighth overall out of Vanderbilt.

"This is his first true challenge at the professional level, and we definitely gave him a challenge, throwing him in there," assistant general manager Bill Geivett said.

That would be Double-A Tulsa, where Weathers, 23, went 2-1 with a 3.15 ERA and two saves in 41 games before leaving to play with Team USA in the Olympics, where his teammates from the Rockies organization include Tulsa center fielder Dexter Fowler and Triple-A Colorado Springs second baseman Jayson Nix.

After initially setting up, so he could pitch more than one inning and avoid the all-or-nothing consequences of a save situation, Weathers recently moved into the closer's role at Tulsa, albeit without working yet on consecutive days.

With a mid-90 mph fastball and a hard slider, Weathers held opponents to a .207 average and piled up 48 strikeouts in 40 innings but also walked 27.

"You got to remember, we drafted and acquired him as a guy who could pitch late in games," Geivett said. "So there's a very small margin for error when you're pitching late in a game at the big-league level."

To get there, Geivett said Weathers needs to acquire "true command of his fastball. Right now, he's got OK control of it. But really true command where he can follow the (catcher's) glove with his fastball and put it there when he needs to - I'd say that's the biggest issue that he faces."

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